604 NortH CAROLINA Troops, 1861-’65.

our James B. Gordon. The Fifth loved him as its com-
mander during the Gettysburg campaign and, as his entire
brigade did, for his splendid courage and merit in all re
spects. He was the Murat of the Army of Northern Vir-
ginia, and had he lived he would have added increased lustre
to our North Carolina Cavalry. I want to identify him with
his home and people so that we can hold him in closer relation
in this way and, therefore, I state that his sister was the
mother of Messrs. R. N. and James Gordon Hackett, of
Wilkes. That county was rather famous for such cavalry-
men—Colonel W. H. H. Cowles was born and now lives there.

KENNON'S LANDING, OR WILSON’S WHARF.

The attack on Kennon’s Landing was the most useless sac-
rifice of time and men and horses made during the war.

The brigade was camped 23 May near Hanover Junction,
recuperating a little from the terrible ride and fighting of the
Sheridan raid. Late that afternoon an order came to each
Captain for a “detail of picked men for specially dangerous
work.” The Sixty-third furnished about 225 men and
officers, under command of Major McNeill. There surely
were not over 1,000 men on the expedition. from our bri-
gade. Wilson’s Wharf was a fortified post of great natural
and artificial strength on the James river, below City Point,
and consequently fully in the enemy’s lines. It was forty-
seven miles in a stradght line,. by best military maps, from
Hanover Junction. It consisted of a fort built in semi-circle
form on a bluff of the river with each end resting on the
James, with heavy parapets and a canal of water the entire
front of the half circle. There was open ground for several
hundred yards all around the fort. covered with abattis and
large fallen pine trees to impede assailants. If we could ever
have taken it we never could have held it. The expedition
was under the immediate command of General Fitzhugh Lee,
and originated with him, it was said at the time, to drive some
negro soldiers off Virginia soil.

We left Hanover Junction about 6 p. m. on the 23d and
rode all night and much of the time at a gallop. Early on
the morning of the 24th we were near the fort, but for some

Srxty-TuHirp REGIMENT. 605

inexplicable reason the attack was delayed. A note, by flag
of truce, was sent in to General Wild, commanding the post,
demanding immediate surrender, and saying if not complied
with, that General Lee would not be responsible for action of
his men when the fort was taken. Wild answered: “We will
try that.” Vol. 68, p. 269. It was 11 o’clock before we be-
gan to get into position ; in the meantime the gunboats Dawn,
Pequot and the Atlanta (ironclad) were shelling us fiercely
and the fort was filling with reinforcements. The enemy
also had a small vessel named the Mayflower. Some of our
forces wounded the captain and pilot of this boat. I never
heard of any injury that we inflicted on the ironclad. We
had no artillery ; but with or without artillery, “no regiment
of our cavalry was afraid of those things.”

The shells were chiefly 100-pounders. We could see them
plainly coming at and over us; great black masses, as big as
nail kegs, hurtling in the air and making the earth tremble
under us and the atmosphere jar and quake around us when
they burst. They certainly were terrifying. And under their
effect I compared the “details” from the Ninth and Sixty-
third. The former was dismounted and ours mounted, each
in column of fours near together under those awful missiles.
As one came towards us and burst over us, I saw those old
veterans of the Ninth looking up at it with horror, lean back
slightly and out of line. Just such a look and backward in-
cline of their bodies as I imagine the immortal sentinel at
Pompeii made, momentarily, when that dark, ashen death
fixed him erect at his post for the admiration of future ages.
Captain N. P. Foard saw their momevent and, under the
bursting, crashing sound and mass, he said. “Steady men,
steady!” Possibly before the words were uttered they were
erect, as statues. At the same second I glanced along the
Sixty-third, in the same line of my vision, and every man sat
in his saddle absolutely motionless. It was no discredit to
the Ninth, but the contrast was glorious for the Sixty-third.

We were soon put in line of battle around that fort, our
regiment on the extreme left, the enemy’s right. We were to
charge, at the firing of a signal gun on our left. We lay
there for an hour or more waiting that signal, eating straw-