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3804 Nortu Carorina Troops, 1861~’65.

purpose of advancing or bringing on an engagement, but as
General Lee said to A. P. Hill, to hold the enemy in check
until Longstreet’s Corps and Anderson’s Division of A. P.
Hill’s Corps should come up. Davis’ Brigade was formed on
the left of the road; our regiment was the right centre of the
brigade and on the crest of a small hill or ridge. It was in a
dense forest of small trees; the hill in our front sloped gradu-
ally to a depression or valley which was a few yards wide, and
then there was a gradual incline on the opposite side until it
reached a point of about the same altitude as that occupied by
us, about 100 yards from our line. We had 340 men, inelud-
ing non-commissioned officers, in our regiment. About 3:30
o’elock, our skirmish line was driven in and the first line of
the Federal forces charged, but they got no further than
the crest of the hill in front of us, and were repulsed with
great loss; from then until sunset, they charged us with seven
successive lines of battle, but we repulsed every one of them.
Our line never wavered. The officers and men of the regi-
ment realized that the safety of the army depended upon our
holding the enemy in check until the forces left behind could
come up, and there was a fixed determination to do it, or to
die. About 6 o’clock the enemy were pressing us so heay-
ily with their successive lines of fresh troops it was thought
that they would annihilate us before nightfall, and a
conference of the general officers on the field determined that
it would probably become necessary as a last resort, to make
a vigorous and impetuous charge upon them with the hope
that we might be able to drive them back. Colonel Belo,
who was sitting just in the rear of the regiment by the side of
a little poplar tree, sent his orderly to the line to the writer
of this sketch (C. M. Cooke), instructing him to report to him
immediately. I went at once. He then stated to’ me that
the necessity of a charge seemed apparent and that the order
for making it would probably soon be given, and he desired
that I return to the line and notify the men that they might
be prepared for it, and take the command of my own com-
pany and also ©, which was the flag company, the command-
ing officer of which had a few moments before been severely
wounded, and to see that the flag was kept well to the front,