618 Nortu Carorina Troops, 1861-65.

nians stood to their guns and repulsed every advance made
by the enemy, holding them in check alone, and without in-
fantry support, until the arrival of General Beauregard with
the troops commanded by Mahone before mentioned.

We claim the honor of saving the day, and preventing what
might have been a very serious disaster and probable loss of
Petersburg.

No one save those who went through the fiery ordeal can
form the slightest conception of the fury of this attack. Not
less than fifty shells a minute were hurled at the company;
and but for the protection afforded them by the sides*of the
road, they would have been swept off the face of the earth.
There are those now living who can confirm my statement,
and if this should meet the eyes of gentlemen cognizant of
these details, they will doubtless do us this justice. The his-
tory of a battle can not truthfully be written from the stand-
point of any one man, although present in the engagement.
It is due, therefore, to the brave men who composed my com-
mand that they should be properly placed upon the record.

We do not wish to lessen the claims to which the valorous
troops of other commands are entitled, but let us make such
contributions as the future historian can work into a con-
tinuous narrative and do justice to all.

» Henry G. FLanner.

Witmrineton, N. C.,
30 July, 1877.

Norr.—The above article by Captain Henry G. Flanner as to the ser-
vices of his Battery, Company F. Thirteenth North Carolina Battalion,
(see Vol. 4. p. 354, of this work) at the Crater is taken from Vol. 5,
Southern Historical Papers, pages 247-248, and deserves reproduction
here. Captain Flanner had. as he states, no direct infantry support, in
his rear, but the enemy were prevented from debouching not only by
the effective fire of his guns but by the Confederate Infantry on either
side who would have taken them in flank and rear had they advanced.
A very vivid, interesting and accurate account of that day and probably
the best extant, is that given by Captain Robert D. Graham, Fifty-sixth
North Carolina Infantry, in Vol. 3. of this work, at pp. 371-374. The
battery styled by him as Latham’s (its former Captain) was Flanner’s at
that date —Eprror.

 

EXVERIENCE OF PKISONERS UN-
DER FIRE AT MOKRIS ISLAND.

By CHAS. M. BUSBEE, Sere’r-Masor Firrn Reament, N. C. T.

I was captured at the battle of Spottsylvania Court
House 12 May, 1864. Many other prisoners were captured
at the same time. During the day we were marched to the
rear of the Federal Army and spent the night in a field in
which thousands of cattle had been herded during the day.
We slept upon the ground in dirty mud, the rain falling upon
us all night. The next day we were marched via Fredericks-
burg to a landing on the Potomac River called Belle Plaine,
and there were put on a cattle steamer and taken to Fort Del-
aware. This fort was the abiding place of many Confeder-
ate prisoners and was located on an island in the Delaware
River, about seventy-five or one hundred miles below Phila-
delphia.

Many of the prisoners had friends and kinspeople in the
North and were the recipients of money and clothing. There
was a very unique and I have no doubt profitable (to the au-
thorities of the prison) financial method of delivering to the
prisoners what money was sent to them from the outside.
The funds so sent were not delivered in cash, but in the shape
of sutler’s checks. These checks were small, oblong pieces of
parchment with their value printed on them, ranging from
5 cents to one dollar, and were received as cash by the sutler.
For exchanging the cash sent to any prisoner into these sut-
lers’ checks, the prison authorities charged a commission of
10 per cent., so that for $5.00 sent to any prisoner, he re-
ceived only $4.50 in checks. Somebody’s pocket was nicely
lined by this performance.

The Summer was passed with the constant hope that we
would be exchanged. Many were the methods of passing the