The victory was complete. Large quantities of provisions and army stores were captured. The Federals had abandoned their entire line of breastworks, and had changed their base. They were fortifying upon our left, about five miles off from their original position. The battlefield was covered with their dead and wounded soldiers. I have never seen so many battle-flags left indiscriminately upon any battlefield. I ran over twenty in the charge, and could have picked them up everywhere; did pick up one, and was promoted to fourth corporal for gallantry in picking up a flag on the battlefield.
On the final charge that was made, I was shot in the ankle and heel of my foot. I crawled into their abandoned ditch, which then seemed full and running over with our wounded soldiers. I dodged behind the embankment to get out of the raking fire that was ripping through the bushes, and tearing up the ground. Here I felt safe. The firing raged in front; we could hear the shout of the charge and the clash of battle. While I was sitting here, a cannon ball came tearing down the works, cutting a soldier's head off, spattering his brains all over my face and bosom, and mangling and tearing four or five others to shreds. As a wounded horse was being led off, a cannon ball struck him, and he was literally ripped open, falling in the very place I had just moved from.
I saw an ambulance coming from toward the Yankee line, at full gallop, saw them stop at a certain place, hastily put a dead man in the ambulance, and gallop back toward the Yankee lines. I did not know the meaning of this maneuver until after the battle, when I learned that it was General McPherson's dead body.
We had lost many a good and noble soldier. The casualties on our side were frightful. Generals, colonels, captains, lieutenants, sergeants, corporals and privates were piled indiscriminately everywhere. Cannon, caissons, and dead horses were piled pell-mell. It was the picture of a real battlefield. Blood had gathered in pools, and in some instances had made streams of blood. 'Twas a picture of carnage and death.
AM PROMOTED
"Why, hello, corporal, where did you get those two yellow stripes from on your arm?"
"Why, sir, I have been promoted for gallantry on the battlefield, by picking up an orphan flag, that had been run over by a thousand fellows, and when I picked it up I did so because I thought it was pretty, and I wanted to have me a shirt made out of it."
"I could have picked up forty, had I known that," said Sloan.
"So could I, but I knew that the stragglers would pick them up."
Reader mine, the above dialogue is true in every particular. As long as I was in action, fighting for my country, there was no chance for promotion, but as soon as I fell out of ranks and picked up a forsaken and deserted flag, I was promoted for it. I felt "sorter" cheap when complimented for gallantry, and the high honor of fourth corporal was conferred upon me. I felt that those brave and noble fellows who had kept on in the charge were more entitled to the honor than I was, for when the ball struck me on the ankle and heel, I did not go any further. And had I only known that picking up flags entitled me to promotion and that every flag picked up would raise me one notch higher, I would have quit fighting and gone to picking up flags, and by that means I would have soon been President of the Confederate States of America. But honors now begin to cluster around my brow. This is the laurel and ivy that is entwined around the noble brows of victorious and renowned generals. I honestly earned the exalted honor of fourth corporal by picking up a Yankee battle-flag on the 22nd day of July, at Atlanta.