Pe TIKRST: KEGIMENT. AL -GET-
TYSBURG.

By SERGEANT C. W. RIVENBARK, Company C.

Thirty years ago I wrote for publication “Two Years at

Fort Delaware,” which has been reprinted in Vol. 4 of this
work. I wish to say a few words here on the conduct of my
old company at Gettysburg, of which I was then acting Or-
derly Sergeant, and the manner of my capture. The history
of the regiment has been ably written up by our gallant Col- |
onel, H. A. Brown.

Beginning at the charge made on the second line of the
enemy’s works at the southeast base of Culp’s Hill, I take
it for granted that the reader is familiar with the charge
made by the regiment on the evening of 2 July, as given by
Colonel Brown. (Page 148, first volume of this work.)
In that successful charge our ranks were thinned so that
when our roll was called at daylight next morning our com-
pany numbered only twenty-three, officers and men.

Though the regiment went forward with a will, as it
always did, it was simply impossible for a human being to en-
dure the concentrated fire of artillery and small arms that
were directed upon us at short range, so that we were ordered
back to the line of works we had captured the evening before
and from which we had just charged. Before arriving there
our company (C) formed itself behind two large boulders sur-
rounded by others of less dimensions, forming, as it were, a
natural little fort sufficiently large to cover the little band of
twenty-three.

We immediately took advantage of this position, while the
balance of the regiment settled back to its position of the
evening before. Now we found ourselves fronting to the
south and a little in advance of the regiment. It was then