588 NortH CarRoLina Troops, 1861-’65.

old company, I regret that I can recall no act of special merit
or bravery of my own; on all occasions Company H was never
called for in vain.” But true history loves such men too
much to let them be concealed behind their own modesty and
his men specially request that the foregoing mention of him
be made. Company H and its officers were just representa-
tive men of the Sixty-third in making its great history, but
I am truly sorry that all other companies and officers have
not done as well as H in helping to record that history.
Lieutenant Moore, of Company C, was captured on the An-
tietam. Lieutenant Gibson and Green Bingham, of Company
F, were both severely wounded in the fight at Jack Mountain;
and John Cahill, of Company F, shot through and through
with his carbine while both were mounted, a large, grand
looking, gallant Federal officer, leading their charge on Jack
Mountain who tried to ride down and saber Cahill. This
officer died in our ‘regimental surgeon’s chair that night.
John Cahill was a plain, big, fat country boy, but it was
the unanimous opinion of all officers and men of Company
F that “John Cahill was the very best soldier in Company
F,” and Company F was just as good as any company in
the Sixty-third North Carolina Regiment. But when I
urged him yesterday, in a meeting of some members of Com-
pany F to tell me some special act of his to record here, he
laughed that big, jovial laugh we had heard so often in
camp and even along the line of battle, and then said, seri-
ously and thoughtfully and sadly to me: “Well, I declare, I
don’t know a thing in the world to tell you.” I say “sadly,”
because such heroes, who immortalized the Army of Northern
Virginia, are fast passing away and we just can’t get them
to tell their deeds for history. Others present knew and told
about his shooting the Federal officer on Jack Mountain.
Sahill then concurred in their statement and, with evident
satisfaction, added: “But he is the only man, I am glad to
say, that I ever knew I killed during the war.” There are
too many others in Company F almost as good soldiers as
Cahill for me to name them all here. I am sorry I can not.
On the retreat from Gettysburg, J. D. Hodges, of Com-
pany H, was a picket on the Antietam and was cut off by

Srxty-Toirp REGIMENT. 589

Kilpatrick’s cavalry. He made every effort to join his regi-
ment and, in his movements, rode up on two Federal cavalry-
men coming out of a farm house. He knew that Kilpatrick’s
forces were all around him, but he leveled his carbine on them
and ordered them to surrender. They did so and he was
doing his best to take them out, they protested all the while
that their men would see him and fire on him and kill them
all. And finally he was seen and surrounded by a squad of
Kilpatrick’s men and one “boy in gray” was made very sad
and two “boys in blue” very happy.

Company I lost fourteen men captured and several killed
while on the picket line on Antietam.

Captain N. P. Rankin, of Company I, had command of the
Sixty-third’s dismounted skirmishers that terrible night at
Auburn. Then, as always, he was efficient, capable and
brave. After the regiment had mounted, from that fierce
firing line, for our withdrawal, among the foremost and most
helpful men in the dangerous and difficult task of bringing
out from that triangle the heavy ordnance wagons of Gor-
don’s Brigade was a first-class fighting private of Company I,
D. B. Coltrane. All night and till we withdrew he was on
the Sixty-third’s line of battle. He is now the gentlemanly,
courteous cashier of the Concord National Bank, Concord,
N. C., to which position he has risen, from the war’s poverty
on all Southerners, by the same courage and character that
succeeded, in the face of adversity, in bringing out our bri-
gade’s ammunition at Auburn. Sergeant E. D. Hines, of
Company I, was conspicuous for gallantry on the Sixty-
third’s line of battle at Auburn and was always brave and
faithful. Sergeant Robt. A. Davidson, son of A. Brevard
Davidson, of Charlotte, N. C., was captured at Jack’s Shop
and, in our mounted pursuit of Kilpatrick, after he was
beaten back at Jack’s Shop, John Cahill was severely shot
in the hip, and, except for this wound, he never missed a
single duty during the war.

Lieutenant J. C. Hines, a brave and efficient officer of Com-
pany G, was captured at Jack’s Shop and was a prisoner dur-
ing the entire war. or one year he was one of the 500 Con-
federate officers placed under the fire of our guns of Fort