108 NortH Caronina Troops, 1861-’65.

at almost every five or ten steps, but they were immediatly
filled in by our brave boys closing in and filling up the gaps.
This continued until our line of battle came to whnhe: our
skirmishers were situated, when we received a few shots from
the enemy’s skirmishers in addition to the cannon shot and
- shell which continued to pour in on us from the time we
started until we were so close under their guns that they
could not use them upon us without shooting their own men.
As our regiment advanced its ranks were thinned at every
step by shot and shell from the hands of the enemy. Many a
brave man from our regiment fell dead upon the field and
many more were slightly and others badly wounded. Here
it was that Captain J. W. Brown, of Company I, was shocked
by the bursting of a shell and carried back to the rear and
almost immediately after this Lieutenant J. Wiley Jones
was shot through the thigh leaving Lieutenant J. Rowan
Rogers as the only officer with Company I. As Lieutenant
J ones was wounded and fell he raised his sword and cheered
his men on. J. D. Newsom, Lieutenant of Company H
was slightly wounded in the shoulder almost at the
first shot from the musketry, which was fired after
the charge was started and he rushed to his Captain (Mitch-
ell) and says to him, “Captain, they have wounded
me, but I want to lead Company H,” and gallantly did he
lead it. He fell terribly wounded with his foot upon
one rail of the fence that ran along the road, next to the rock
sin behind which the Yankee line was posted. Our color-
sii a member of Company K, Faucett’s Company from
amance county, succeeded in passing over this fence, but
fell mortally wounded. He died that night with his fies to
the enemy. Our colors fell with our brave color-bearer not
ten steps from the rock wall. About 150 yards from the rock
nos while crossing one of the many fences, which ran across
the ground we were charging over, I was shot in my left leg
and thrown from the fence. When I arose the remnant of
our once fine regiment was reduced to a mere handful of
brave men, still going forward from thirty to as close up as
= steps to the rock wall. Seeing this and having recovered
rom my fall and my leg not seeming to be badly hurt, I made

Forty-SEVENTH REGIMENT. 109

a rush to join the set of brave men nearest the enemy, when I
was startled to hear the command given the Yankee skirmish-
ers “To the front,” and immediately I heard our brave Lieu-
tenant-Colonel Graves give the order for the handful of brave
men to lie down, hoping thus to hold his position until rein-
forcements should come; but none came. The Forty-seventh
acted bravely, coolly and none faltered.

The largest number of those who got out of that charge
were those who had been slightly wounded before they got
too close to the breastworks to fall back, and those who were
wounded early enough in the charge to be carried back by
our own men. Among those who were so close to the enemy’s
works that they could not retreat were Lieutenant-Colonel
Graves, Captain Jos. J. Davis, afterwards member of Con-
gress and Justice of our Supreme Court; Lieutenant Watson,
of Company K, and a number of others I cannot recall, in all
a mere handful, for they had all been shot dowa or exhausted
and overcome by heat. I have seen somewhere that the
Forty-seventh Regiment lost, wounded and killed and miss-
ing, 351. This is certainly a mistake. The proportion was
larger than that in my company (I). We lost 57 and we
had officers who were present and could report correctly the
number of the killed and wounded. I think three companies
lost all their officers and no correct report was given from
those. They reported the smallest number of men killed,
wounded and missing. As I have stated above, there was
no faltering on the part of the Forty-seventh on 3 July, 1863.
All did their duty and acted the part of brave soldiers.

FALLING WATERS.

After General Lee left Gettysburg our first halt for more
than one night was at Hagerstown, Maryland. Here the
Forty-seventh was engaged in skirmishing with the enemy’s
outpost and did some picket duty on or near a stream called
Antietam. We then moved in line of battle and built breast-
works not far from Hagerstown, towards Falling Waters.
When General Lee recrossed the Potomac, Pettigrew’s Brig-
ade was again given the post of honor which was to bring
up the rear of our retreating army. At Falling Waters, or