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600 Norra Carorina Troops, 1861-’65.

riously, but always. with sorrow for the dead and the defeat
in front at Yellow Tavern, but history must record that it was
another case of “Pickett or Pettigrew.” If Gordon and his
North Carolimans had not pressed him as they did, Sheridan
would surely have gone into Richmond 11 May, 1864.

Among our mortally wounded at Ground Squirrel Church
were Lieutenant Samuel Hanner, of Company I, and Pri-
vate R. Davis Kerr, of Company F, and of course, many
others whose names I cannot recall.

The following appeared in the Richmond Hnquirer of 12
May, and was copied in a North Carolina paper of May,
1864, from which I now copy:

“Individual instances of daring are numerous and we hope
not to be invidious in mentioning an instance. In the charge
the Yankee colors at one time being almost in reach, Lieu-
tenant Lindsay, of the Fifth North Carolina, dashes at them
and grapples with the color-bearer. As he reaches for them,
an expert shift from one hand to the other by the color-bearer,
saves them from his grasp, but, with well-plied stroke of the
sabre, he almost unhorses the bearer, who, bleeding, reels, but
gathers his equilibrium, and by means of the fleetness of his
horse, saves himself with his devoted Yankee bunting.

“Another instance is, also, worthy of publicity. Private
Frank Brown, of Company H, Fifth North Carolina Cavalry,
a mere stripling, dashes into the heavy ranks of the First
Maine Regiment and encounters an athletic Yankee Captain,
who, with a stunning blow with his broad sabre, knocks the
lad from his horse; at the same instant the Yankee Captain’s
horse was shot from under him. Just as this brave lad was
rising from the ground, his eye caught the situation of his an-
tagonist, and, raising the butt of his gun, he commenced club-
bing the Yankee, who lustily cried out for quarter.”

Frank Brown accepted his surrender and went with him,
12 May, as a “special guard” by reason of his own wound, to
Libby Prison, in Richmond, and there in person, turned him
over to our authorities.

I am assured that Frank Brown dismounted and with ear-
bine leveled on them, also captured four privates of the First
Maine that same day and three horses, one of which was given,

Sixty-Tuoirp REGIMENT. 601

there in the fight, to Lieutenant Kerr Craige, of Gordon’s
staff, and another to Captain C. W. Pearson, of Company H,
both of whom had their horses killed there.

This same captain of the First Maine, seeing one of his
own company privates surrender to Private J. B, Foard, of
Company H, Sixty-third North Carolina, and, in the zeal and
intensity of his own valorous fighting, being unconscious of
the exact situation, called out to his man, naming him: “What
in the thunder does that mean?’ Just then Frank Brown
and the Captain met. Brown, in marching the Captain to
the rear, overtook Foard and his prisoner, when the latter
politely said: “Captain, what in the thunder does this
mean ?”

And there seems then to have been a mutual understand-
ing between them as to what it did mean.

A member of the First Maine, in this same conflict, was
in the very act of shooting Sergeant A. N. Campbell, of Com-
pany H, when the latter, with a tremendous “right cut against
cavalry,” knocked the gun out of his hand and took him pris-
oner. Captain Pearson writes of Campbell: ‘No braver
man ever drew the breath of life.”

S. F. Flemming, of Company H, got in this fight, a terri-
ble saber cut on his head and forehead, the scar of which
plainly shows to-day. We captured that day an entire wagon
load of Spencer rifles and their special ammunition. It was
a splendid, long-range, breech-loader and shot seven times
without reloading. I carried one of them during the re-
mainder of my service in the ranks, and was very much at-
tached to it.

BROOK CHURCH,

General Sheridan calls this “Meadow Bridge.” In grat-

itude, I guess, to the bridge that “carried him over” his im-
minent danger and disaster at Brook Church.

The Brook Turnpike above Richmond runs almost due
north and south. The Military road at Brook, or Emanuel
Church, strikes it at right angles from the east, in which direc-
tion this road crosses the upper Chickahominy at Meadow
Bridge. In his midnight retreat of 11 May, from Yellow