554 NortH CaRo.ina Troops, 1861-’65.

Station 14 October and numerous skirmishes, then went into
winter quarters, late in the fall, at Orange Court House, where
it remained until May, 1864. While here, to break the monot-
ony of camp life, we had the grandest. “Gander Pulling” ever
recorded, at which there were some forty to fifty thousand
men present. Dr. J. H. McAden, Brigade Surgeon, who
was left to care for our wounded at Gettysburg, having been
exchanged as a prisoner of war, was the successful knight,
carrying the Gander’s head off as surely, if not as deftly, as
he had the arms and legs of many a wounded soldier.

On 5 May, 1864, under Major-General Cadmus M. Wil
cox, who had succeeded General Pender, the Brigade struck
Grant’s army in the Wilderness, where one of the most ter-
rifie battles of the war was fought. This was the beginning
of the “fight-it-out-on-this-line-if-it-takes-all-summer” cam-
paign which extended on through the bloody fields of Spott-
sylvania, Hanover Junction, Cold Harbor to Petersburg.

About the last of August the brigade participated in the
battle of Reams Station, on the P. & W. Railroad, capturing
a large number of prisoners and several pieces of artillery.
The winter was spent in the trenches around Petersburg and
in doing picket duty and meeting the enemy’s raids along the
right of our lines, until 2 April, when our lines were broken
and our army fell back in the direction of Appomattox Court
House. During the retreat, as well as during the previous
winter, the brigade lost many brave officers and men in killed,
wounded and captured, as the battle had raged almost with-
out ceasing for the past eleven months.

On Sunday morning, 9 April, as Scales’ Brigade (com-
manded by Colonel J. H. Hyman, of the Thirteenth Regi-
ment, General Seales being at home sick) marched to the sup-
port of General Cox, who had engaged the enemy just east
and north of the Court House, the command “cease firing”
passed along both lines of battle. Scales’ Brigade surren-
dered more than 700 as brave officers and men as ever faced
an enemy or yielded to overwhelming numbers.

T. L. Rawrey.

Winston, N. C.,
13 December, 1901.