These were Virginia boys, the sons of veterans, and attending a local school.
The raid came to grief soon after, being routed by Fitz-Hugh Lee.
Thomas Hilton, of Uniontown, Alabama, volunteered in the "Witherspoon Guards," Twenty-first Alabama Regiment, at the tender age of fourteen. He was too small to carry a musket, and was detailed as a drummer boy. At the battle of Shiloh he threw away his drum and so importuned his captain for a gun that it was given him.
Shortly after, while in the thick of the fight, he was shot through the face, the ball entering one side and passing out at the other.
Rev. N.I. Witherspoon (chaplain of the regiment) found him lying upon the ground, bleeding to death as he then supposed, and knelt beside him to pray. To his surprise the boy looked up, the fire in his eyes unquenched, and gasped out while the blood gushed afresh at every word,—
"Yes—chaplain—I'm—badly hurt—but—I'm—not—whipped."
Thomas Hilton still lives in Uniontown, Alabama, respected by all who know him. His fellow-citizens regard the ugly scar which still appears upon his face with pride and reverence.
The battle of Mansfield, Louisiana, was one of the most hotly-contested and bloody of the war, the loss in men and officers being terrific. The tide of battle rolled on, through lofty pine forests, amid tangled undergrowth, and over open fields, where the soldiers were exposed a to storm of shot and shell, and where, on that beautiful Sunday morning, hundreds of the dead and dying strewed the ground. While the battle was at its height it became necessary, in order to secure concerted action, to send dispatches to a certain point. The only way lay across a ploughed field, exposed to a terrific fire from the enemy, whose target the messenger would become: and it seemed as if certain death must be the fate of any one who should attempt to run the gauntlet. And yet the necessity was met. A boy of eighteen years stepped forth from the ranks of Company G, Crescent Regiment, Louisiana Volunteers, and offered to perform this dangerous service.
Dashing on through a perfect hail of shot and shell, stumbling and falling over the furrowed ground, struggling up and on again, he passed unharmed, successfully executing his mission. His escape was so miraculous that one can only account for it by the belief that God gave his angels charge concerning him.
The name of this valiant boy—James V. Nolan—should live in history. He still lives, and has been for years secretary of the Cotton Exchange at Shreveport, Louisiana.