640 Nortu Carorina Troops, 1861-65.

yards wide up to the enemy’s works and then far down the
stream was a body of good sized timber. From the stream the
ground rose rapidly to the enemy’s lines and works, which
were about two hundred yards from the stream with their ex-
treme left point being almost opposite to what was to be Mc-
Neill’s right. MeNeill’s intended right, across the creek,
would overlap their left slightly. From the place where they
dismounted, the Sixty-third and Nineteenth moved rapidly
towards the ford, a large body of Sheridan’s cavalry was on
our side of the stream, a fierce fight ensued and they were
driven pell-mell across the ford back to their works. In this
affair Colonel Gaines lost his right arm. Grandly and glo-
riously, with Colonel McNeill in the lead, our regiment
crossed that ford under a galling, withering fire from Henry
rifles, that shot sixteen times each without loading, fired by an
entrenched enemy. Every man held his cartridge box high
above that seething water with his left hand and his rifle in
his right. They crossed, as ordered, “by fours,” as regularly
as ever a regiment moved on a parade ground. They had
learned to parade in battle. As they crossed, McNeill gave
the proper orders loud and clear; each company captain, as
his company landed, repeated the order and quickly the regi-
ment was in line of battle to the right of the road waiting for
the Nineteenth to cross. And just here, as at Balaklava,
“somebody blundered.” “Blundered” awfully, but with the
best intention. To distract the fire from our two regiments,
W. H. F. Lee ordered a Virginia regiment to charge across the
ford mounted, just when the Nineteenth was steadily, as
always, stepping forward to cross. Misunderstanding their
orders, only a squadron of the Virginians rushed over and up
the incline of the road. The Nineteenth closed right in be-
hind them. Frank Brown, one of Barringer’s couriers, with
his hat in his right hand, as he almost always rode in battle,
till he got within saber distance of the foe, rushed, under Bar-
ringer’s orders, to McNeill to learn his situation. McNeill
was advancing slowly for the Nineteenth to form on his left
and the fire was so furious that it was better to advance than
to stand. To Brown’s enquiry, Colonel McNeill coolly said:
“Please tell General Barringer that I am all right and ad-

 

 

Srxty-Turrp Regiment. 641

vancing slowly for the Nineteenth to form on my left that we
may charge and carry those works. Ask him, please, to
hasten the Nineteenth over.” About two companies of the
Nineteenth crossed behind that squadron, just as grandly as
the Sixty-third had. And then that squadron broke and fled
back to the narrow ford. Our brigade color-bearer, Churchill,
waving his battle flag in his hand, Lieutenant Fred. Foard,
General Barringer’s Aide, and I rushed at them on the
enemy’s side of the stream and tried to rally them, and espe-
cially to keep them off the Nineteenth. But they were panic-
stricken ; not even appeals to “look at those North Carolinians
crossing here,” could halt those horsemen, breaking the line
of the Nineteenth and pushing them down into the deep water
at the lower side of the ford. The enemy were so exultant
over their sight of the fleeing squadron that they advanced
and redoubled their already furious fire on McNeill and the
ford, where the column of the Nineteenth was now helplessly
cut in twain by that mingled mass of mounted men, while Me-
Neill’s ammunition was almost exhausted. D. B. Coletrane,
standing near him, said: ‘Colonel, I have only two ear-
tridges ; shall I use them or hold them?’ “Keep them; you
may need them more in a moment,” coolly and calmly an-
swered MeNeill, in the face of a well recognized and terrify-
ing danger. And there he and his regiment were; fighting,
and firing their last shot. And now let Captain C. W. Pear-
son speak. In his sketch of Company H, now before me, he
says: “The writer was talking to Colonel MeNeill, when he
saw a man a little to the right, run from a large pine to an-
other pine, very soon a puff of smoke came from the tree. I
think this shot killed the Colonel, as just at that time he fell,
apparently instantly killed, some of the men picked him up
and started back, but got only a short distance, when the en-
tire line gave way. In recrossing the creek we had to swim
under a heavy fire.” And this is why “Colonel MeNeill was
repulsed at the ford.” He was being carried off dead in the
arms of his loving men who had fired their last shots into the
swarming ranks of an overwhelming, advancing foe.

General Barringer, mounted on his horse, right at the ford,

41