INTO A HOT FIRE
The whole line rushed forward over a fence and down a slight slope in the ground, about fifty yards, and was met by a close and deadly fire from the enemy, whom we could not see, but the sharp, quick "sip, sip" of the minie balls, as they whacked the trees and cut the bushes and twigs, told plainly that we were in very close quarters. On the hill where the firing commenced, I don't remember that we suffered any casualties—I think the Yankees shot too low; but now the men were falling on every hand. The firing was kept up here for some little time, the men sitting or kneeling on the ground, loading and shooting into the bushes in front whence the balls were coming, though no enemy was in sight. While here I looked to the left, oblique from our front, and saw a Yankee standing beside a tree some seventy-five yards away, about where the line had been first seen. Up to this time I had carried a pistol, a Colt's five-shooter, and drawing this I aimed at this Yankee, snapped the pistol several times, which, failing to fire, I threw it down, picked up a loaded musket that had fallen from the hands of some man, killed or wounded, and fired at the Yankee; where he was hit, I never knew. About this time the cry came along our lines from the right, "They are running." The line again pushed forward, but we did not catch sight of the Yankees, that is, live ones, but a short distance, some twenty yards in front, their line of battle was plainly marked by the dead men lying strewn along through the woods. The lines continued to press forward through the woods for a quarter of a mile or more, until the eastern edge of the woods was reached, where the timber had been felled.
While pushing along through the woods I saw to my left several of Company C around a gray-haired Yankee officer with side-whiskers and mustache, seemingly rifling his pockets. I shouted at the men, "Stop robbing that officer." They replied, "We are just loosening his belt." The officer said the same when I approached him. He had been desperately wounded and left by his men.
In the felled timber, some thirty yards from the woods, the Yankees had taken refuge, lying down behind the logs and stumps, and as the Confederates came up, opened a close and rapid fire, our men protecting themselves behind trees and logs at the edge of the woods and returning the fire. Here the firing was fast and furious, both sides being under cover. The casualties here were not serious, on the Confederate side, at least, the Yankees shooting too high, riddling the trees and bushes overhead.