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262 NortH Caroxina Troops, 1861-’65.

were hurried to a point a few miles south of Petersburg to
frustrate his attack.

THE BATTLE OF HATCHER’ RUN.

Then followed much arduous picketing on Hatcher’s Run,
the winter being a severe one. The Twenty-third took a
prominent part in the battle of Hatcher’s Run, fought in Feb-
ruary. It was in the hottest of the fight near the Crow
house. At one time when the opposing lines of battle were
less than one hundred yards apart, the flag of the Twenty-
third was advanced three times, each time falling as its gal-
lant bearer was shot down. Captain A. D. Peace, in com-
mand of the regiment, now took up the flag and rushed for-
ward, followed by the men. But just then came the tidings
that Pegram had fallen and that we were flanked, and the
lines broke and were falling back in confusion till Gordon
dashed to the front, restored the fight and the enemy were
driven back.

Our regiment lost heavily in the fight, in proportion to
numbers. Captain Frank Bennett, in command of the skir-
mishers that day, lost an arm. Every year of the war had in
store a wound for this gallant officer. The day before Seven
Pines, in 1862; Chancellorsville, in 1863; Spottsylvania, in
1864; Hatcher’s Run, in 1865, are the dates of his wound-
ings.

General Pegram, our division commander, was killed at
Hatcher’s Run and General James Walker assumed command
of the division. Soon after the battle our brigade was sent
back to North Carolina, going into camp at Garysburg, our
first point of rendezvous in the hopeful days of 1861. Four
years of war had dealt hard with the old Twenty-third. Hard-
ship, disease and Yankee lead had left but a battered rem-
nant of the buoyant band of yore.

Remaining here a few days, we were then put on
round duty. There were so many men, mostly conscripts,
deserting from Lee’s army and passing southward through
North Carolina, that the Confederate authorities sought to
check it by drawing a cordon of troops across their route.
Johnston’s brigade was the one selected for this duty. Some

Twenty-THirD REGIMENT. 263

of the companies were sent back to their neighborhoods to
catch deserters. Company A went back to Richmond County.
The battalion of sharpshooters went to cope with the recalci-
trant mountaineers and possibly other companies elsewhere.
But the most of the brigade formed the cordon on Roanoke
river, from Gaston to Clarksville, guarding every road and
ferry. Our regiment was assigned to the lower end of the
line near Gaston with headquarters at Warren Plains. Here
we remained for about a month catching probably as many
deserters as we had men—which was not many.

March 23rd Gordon telegraphed Johnston to bring his bri-
gade to Petersburg at once. The return was so sudden that
the troops far up the river near Clarksville, did not reach the
railroad in time and with the detached companies, in other
parts of the State, joined us at Petersburg some days later.

It was known to the troops on that night that the next day
we were going back to Lee’s stern battle ground around Pe-
tersburg. Some of the men, loosing ‘that night the captured
deserters, fled with them under cover of darkness. But not
many and those few were conscripts, men forced into the
ranks.

Bivouacing at Stony Creek the first night and marching
around the gap in the railroad made by the enemy we pressed
on to the front. The night of the 24th we slept on the hard
pavements of Petersburg, the last sleep but one of many a gal-
lant fellow that neither hardships, nor wounds, nor even de-
spair, could part from the Southern standard—nothing but
death.

While it was yet dark on Friday morning, 25 March, the
men were roused, thrown into column and marched silently
and rapidly to the east.

We had been chosen part of the forlorn hope of the des-
perately straitened Confederacy—honor high, but danger-
ous. Lee’s last hope was by a sudden and desperate assault
on Grant’s left at Fort Steadman to roll back the hostile line
and loosen the strangling folds drawn around the Confederate
Capital and its sister city on the Appomattox.

The opaque east grew vaguely translucent. The Federal
works on Hare’s Hill rose in sharp outline against the bright-