Q. Did you expect to receive further orders from General Pearson when you received your communications from General Latta?
A. I cannot say that I expected to, although I would not have been surprised to have received them.
Q. Did you consider it your duty to take command of the force and to act at your own discretion after General Pearson had left you and you were not able to communicate with him?
A. No further than I did, because communications should have come the other way. I was ordered to do a certain thing, and it was possibly superseding my duty to send out an officer after orders. It would probably have been more soldierly for me to stay there and receive communications from my superior than to send after them.
Q. Didn't you consider it proper, as a military man, to exercise your own discretion in an emergency of that kind, and take the responsibility of it?
A. No; I do not think I did, nor do I yet. The responsibility rested on me to obey orders, and as I had no means of ascertaining what was going on outside, I resolved to hold that place as far as I could, and didn't move out until the men were nearly choked with the smoke. We held it for two hours longer than we were ordered to hold it.
Q. Was the round-house on fire when you left it?
A. It was.
Q. And the shops adjoining the round-house?
A. Yes; the machine shops adjoining the round-house were entirely on fire. The roof was on fire and the floors were saturated with oil and General Matthews sent to me two or three times saying that the smoke was so intense that they could scarcely stay there. Then I moved them out into the yard.