688 NortH Caro.ina Troops, 1861-’65.

burg, and the next day took part in the engagement at Ber-
muda Hundreds, on the north side of the James. Here it
was engaged through three days with heavy skirmishing with
the enemy; the third day of which the enemy was driven to
its fortifications, with heavy loss in killed and wounded.
The loss to the regiment was also heavy. Having repulsed
the force with which it was engaged, temporary fortifications
were then thrown up, the men using bayonets, tin plates and
anything available and which they could put to immediate
use. The enemy soon advanced again in heavy force and the
charge made by them proved little better than a slaughter
pen for them. Lieutenant Davis, of Company C, was disa-
bled while assisting in getting a piece of artillery into posi-
tion, and was so badly wounded that he was never afterwards
able to return to the service.

The regiment remained here and near Bermuda Hundreds
until about 1 June, picketing and skirmishing almost every
day, Hoke’s Division having been ordered to reinforce Lee’s
army, which had just engaged in the battles of the Wilderness
and Spottsylvania, it marched to form this junction, and on
1 June reached the bloody field of Cold Harbor in time to
take a very memorable part in that battle. On the first day
of that fight, the enemy charged our front with three columns,
but in a few moments the ground was covered with their dead
and wounded, and the few survivors falling back to the woods,
could not be forced to the front any more on that day.

In the series of fights which ended on 3 June, Colonel A.
D. Moore was mortally wounded by a ball striking him in the
neck and he died in a very few minutes thereafter. The
writer of this sketch did not have the pleasure of knowing
Colonel Moore personally, as he was not assigned to the regi-
ment until after he had given up his life to the cause, but so
long as he remained with the regiment, and he did so until
it was finally disbanded, the memory of his heroic courage
was ever present to the officers and men of his command, and
oftimes has he heard them comment upon his gallantry and
the soldierly qualities he had always exhibited the short time
it was given him to command the regiment.

Stxty-Sixtna ReGen. 689

PROMOTIONS.

Upon his death, Lieutenant-Colonel J. H. Nethercutt be-
came Colonel of the regiment; Clement G. Wright, Lieuten-
ant-Colonel; and David S. Davis, Captain of Company ©,
was promoted to Major, their commissions bearing date 3
June, 1864, the day of the memorable battle of Second Cold
Harbor.

The regiment, with Hoke’s Division, remained in the
neighborhood of the battlefield some ten or twelve days, ex-
posed to the sharpshooters and mortar shells of the enemy,
but on the 14th was ordered with the rest of Hoke’s Division
back to Petersburg. The regiment arrived there two days
afterwards, about the 16th, after a hurried march to get
ahead of the enemy. When the division reached Petersburg,
late at night, it found the army of General Grant had gotten
in possession of the outer works before the division could get
there; but we immediately went to work and established an-
other line as best we could in the dark.

16 may, 1864.

The next morning the enemy came on in force; our pickets
were driven in, and the line assaulted and hardly pressed.
The assault on the right wing was made in such force and
pressed so far back that it was necessary for a part of the line
to retirejand a break was made, but the division was ordered
to assist in driving the enemy out of the breach which had
been made, and it was quickly done and the line re-estab-
lished. Here the troops entrenched themselves and remained
for some considerable time, exposed to hardships and priva-
tions common at that time to the whole army in front of
Petersburg. The troops virtually lived under ground, and
it was dangerous for a person’s head at any time to be ex-
posed, so near together were the two lines, in some places
hardly more than a hundred yards apart. All cooking had
to be done in the rear or in trenches; and all rations brought
to the officers from their messes had to be brought in the night
time. The soldiers frequently, as a matter of amusement,
would place their hats on the end of their bayonets or ram-
rods and raise them a little above the top of the ground and

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