356 Nortu Carotina Troops, 1861-65.

tion of this movement, the enemy compelled me to fall back

and take a new position a short distance in the rear.
“The second line was promptly formed and we made a des-

perate resistance, but we were forced to fall back and take up
a third position beyond a slight ravine. My third color-
bearer was killed on this line. Augustus Ernst, Company K.

“By this time the ranks were so diminished that searcely a
fourth of the force taken into action could be rallied. Cap-
tain Andrew Wagner, Company F, one of the color guard,
took the colors and was ordered by me to plant them in a po-
sition to which I designed to rally the men. He was wounded
in the breast and left the field. I now took the flag from the
ground where it had fallen and was rallying the remnant of
my regiment, when Private William Kelly, of Company E,
took the colors from my hands, remarking as he did so, ‘The
Colonel of the Twenty-fourth Michigan shall never carry the
colors while I am alive.’ He was killed instantly. Private
Lilburn A. Spaulding, Company K, seized the colors and
bore them for atime. Subsequently I took them from him to
rally the men and kept them until I was wounded.

‘“‘We had inflicted severe loss on the enemy, but we were un-
able to maintain our position, and were forced back step by
step, contesting every foot of the ground to the barricade west
of the Seminary building. The field over which we fought
from our first line of battle in McPherson’s woods to the
barricade near the Seminary, was strewn with the killed and
wounded.

“Our losses were very large, exceeding perhaps the losses
sustained by any regiment of equal size in a single engage-
ment of this or any other war. The strength of the regi-
ment on 1 July, 1863, was 28 officers and 468 rank and
file. total 496. We lost, killed 8 officers and 59 men.
Wounded, 13 officers and 197 men. Missing or captured, 3
officers and 83 men. Nearly all our wounded, myself among
them, fell into the hands of the enemy. The flag of the regi-
ment was carried by no less than nine persons, four of the
number were killed and three wounded. All the color guard

were killed or wounded.”
Returning to Confederate sources for accounts of the he-

TweEnty-SixtH REGIMENT. 357

roic conduct of the Twenty-sixth North Carolina Regiment

I quote from his official report of the battle, made by Major.

General Heth, commanding the division:

“Pettigrew’s Brigade under the leadership of that gallant
officer and accomplished scholar, Brigadier-General J. John-
ston Pettigrew (now lost to his country), fought as well and
displayed as heroic courage, as it was ever my fortune to wit-
ness on a battlefield. The number of its own gallant dead
and wounded as well as the large number of the enemy’s dead
and wounded left on the field over which it fought, attests bet-
ter than any communication of mine, the gallant part it
played on 1 July. In one instance, when the Twenty-sixth
North Carolina Regiment encountered the second line of the
enemy, its (Twenty-sixth Regiment’s) dead marked its line
of battle with the accuracy of a line at dress parade.”

Under date of 9 July, 1863, less than a week before his
fatal wounding at Falling Waters (14 July, 1863), General
Pettigrew writes Governor Vance as follows: “Knowing
that you would be anxious to hear from your old regiment, the
Twenty-sixth, I embrace an opportunity to write you a hasty
note. It covered itself with glory. It fell to the lot of the
Twenty-sixth to charge one of the strongest positions possible.
They drove three, and we have every reason to believe, five
regiments out of the woods with a gallantry unsurpassed.
Their loss has been heavy, very heavy, but the missing are on
the battlefield and in the hospital. Both on the first and
third days your old command did honor to your associa-
tion with them and to the State they represent.” :

Captain J. J. Young, regimental Quartermaster of the
Twenty-sixth regiment, under date of 4 July, 1863, writes
Governor Vance as follows:

“The heaviest conflict of the war has taken place in this
vicinity. It commenced July 1st, and raged furiously until
late last night. Heth’s Division, A. P. Hill’s Corps, opened
the ball and Pettigrew’s Brigade was the advance. We went
in with over 800 men in the regiment. There came out of
the first day’s fight 216 all told, unhurt. Yesterday they
were again engaged, and now have only about 80 men for
duty. To give you an idea of the frightful loss in officers,