114 Norta Carortina Troops, 1861-’65.

Company G—Chatham County—William H. Jones, Cap-
tain.

Company H—Dawidson County—John Michael, Captain.

Company I—Union County—Elias C. Alexander, Cap-
tain.

Company K—Forsyth County—Jesse W. Atwood, Cap-
tain.

It was organized on 11 April, 1862, choosing:

Rosert ©. Hitt, Colonel, of Iredell County.

Samurz, H. Watxup, Lieutenant-Colonel, of Union
County.

Bengamin R. Husxe, Major, of Cumberland County.

As many drafted men had furnished substitutes, some being
old men and some mere boys, the Forty-eighth Regiment was
made up of men of all sizes, and the reader, if acquainted
with military tactics, will at once see the difficulty in drilling
such troops uniformly. In marching the old men would
step too long and slow, the boys too short and fast. But Col-
onel Hill, who was a military man, lost no time in drilling
and disciplining his regiment. We were at Camp Mangum,
but in a short while we moved to Goldsboro, where we were in
camp until about the second week in June, when we went to
Petersburg, Va., and camped on Dunn’s Hill. Here we were
attached to General Robert Ransom’s Brigade.

Under his orders we marched one evening to City Point,
arriving about dark; threw out a strong skirmish line, and
a detail was made to load some wagons with ice from an ice
house, which was near the bank of the James river. The
Yankees were near by in gunboats. (The ice was to be car-
ried to Petersburg.) The next morning General Ransom
opened fire with two or three small pieces on the gunboats,
which were down the river, a mile or more. The Yankees
returned the fire very promptly and threw out among us what
the men called “churns,” cutting off tree tops, and digging
holes in the ground. They fired the woods, and it looked like
they would clear, burn and plow the ground all at the same
time. Only a few rounds were fired. We fell back in or-
der and disorder, but mostly in disorder. A horse was cut

Forty-E1gHtH REGIMENT. 115

on the leg with a piece of shell. This was all the blood lost
on our side, and I do not suppose there was much lost on the
other side. One of our men claimed to be hit on his shoulder
with a piece of shell, but it is more likely he tore his coat
running through the brush; we went back to our camp having,
as we thought, tasted a little of war and seen a little of its
danger. And we all knew we had smelt gunpowder. Nota
few of the men told of narrow escapes. Some of them were
certain they felt the wind of the shells, while others felt the
heat of them as they passed by, and still others were jarred
by the explosions.

On 24 June, we marched to Richmond and camped that -
night in the capitol square. Next morning we marched to
the front line and about 4 p. m., had our first battle, at
French’s Farm. General Robert Ransom ordered Colonel Hill
to advance through an open field on a brigade of Yankees, who
were behind a fence on the edge of the wood, and ordered a
Virginia regiment to support us on the right, but from some
eause the Virginia regiment never came up, and the Forty-
eighth fought a brigade of Federals for some time. They
were in woods behind a fence and we in an open field. How-
ever, a Georgia battalion flanked the enemy on our left, and

thus we were enabled to hold the ground. We lost Major

Huske, Captain Clegg, Company D, and Captain Atwood,
Company K, killed; and Captain Michael, Company H;
Captain Walker, Company ©; Lieutenant Anderson, Com-
pany D; and Lieutenant Stilts, Company A, were wounded.
We lost non-commissioned officers and men: Killed 21,
wounded 46; and of the 46 wounded, 19 died, according to
the North Carolina Roster.

Some unpleasantness occurred between General Ransom
and Colonel Hill, which resulted in the Forty-eighth Regi-
ment being detached from Ransom’s Brigade and on the next
day, the 26th, we marched to Gaines’ Mill, on the extreme left
of our lines, where Stonewall Jackson had been fighting, and
when we arrived Jackson had driven the enemy some two
miles. So we camped on that battlefield that night and the
next morning recrossed the Chickahominy river and went
from place to place, until we joined General Walker at White