This is only a general description. I hope that no old soldier on either side will read it. It is not intended for such as they. It is written virginibus puerisque, and for other people who don’t know anything about the subject. It is printed here in the hope that it may enable such persons a little better to understand these stories of strenuous conflict.
JOE
JOE was very much in earnest at Pocotaligo, South Carolina, where a great little battle was fought on the 22d of October, 1862.
That is to say, Joe was not quite seventeen years old, was an enthusiastic soldier, and was as hot headed as a boy well can be.
We had two batteries and a few companies of mounted riflemen—three hundred and fifty-one men all told—to oppose the advance of five thousand. We had only the nature of the country, the impassability of the marshes, and the long high causeways to enable us to make any resistance at all.
Before the battle of Pocotaligo proper began, we went two miles below to Yemassee and there made a stand of half an hour.
Our battery, numbering fifty-four men, received the brunt of the attack.
Joe had command of a gun.
His men fell like weeds before a scythe. Presently he found himself with only three men left with whom to work a gun.
The other battery was that of Captain Elliot of South Carolina; and Captain Elliot had just been designated Chief of Artillery. Elliot’s battery was really not in action at all. Joe seeing Captain Elliot, and being himself full of the enthusiasm which insists upon getting things done, appealed to the Chief of Artillery for the loan of some cannoneers with whom to work his gun more effectively. Captain Elliot declined. Thereupon Joe broke into a volley of vituperation, calling the captain and his battery cowards, and by other pet names not here to be reported.