"My father had been on duty out on the lines on previous occasions, always against the entreaty of the members of his family. We thought his infirmity, deafness, ought to excuse him. Besides this, he was a bank officer and over military age. When the court-house bell, on the morning of the 9th of June, sounded the alarm, he was at his place of business, in the old Exchange Bank, and we hoped he would not hear it. He got information, however, of the condition of things, came at once home, and informed us of his purpose to go out to the lines. My mother and I besought him not to go, urging that he could not hear the orders.
"'If I can't hear,' he said, 'I can fight—I can fire a gun. This is no time for any one to stand back. Every man that can shoulder a musket must fight. The enemy are now right upon us.'
"Bidding us good-by he left the house. On the street, near our gate, was a man, just from the lines. Addressing him, my father said, pointing to the lines:—
"'My friend, you are needed in this direction.'
"'I am absent on leave,' said the man.
"'No leave,' replied my father, 'should keep you on such an occasion as this. Every man should fight now!'
"I have been informed that as he came up from the bank he urged in the same way all whom he met, capable, as he thought, of bearing arms."
Patty Hardee's father, another man past age for military service, was one of the first to report for duty, and among the first to be borne, dead, to his daughter.
Robert Martin, also exempt, and the father of an adoring family, immediately joined the ranks. Almost totally deaf, he could hear no orders, and continued to load his gun after the order to cease firing was given and the company had begun to move off. A comrade ran up, put his lips to his ear, and remonstrated. "Stop firing!" exclaimed the veteran with disgust. "Orders? I haven't heard any orders to stop firing," and he continued to advance. As Nelson at Copenhagen, who, when told that he had been signalled to stop fighting, turned his blind eye to the station, exclaiming, "I see no signal!"
These are but a few of the many incidents which illustrate the courage of these stout-hearted veterans and the spirit behind their small force which inspired that courage and compelled success. They fought—one hundred and twenty-five men, badly armed and untrained—behind their frail defence; one hundred and twenty-five against twenty-three hundred of the enemy, holding them at bay for two hours! General Butler was greatly chagrined at the failure of this move upon Petersburg. He sent a characteristic letter of reproof to his general officer north of the Appomattox. After detailing all the mistakes that had led to the humiliating repulse, he adds testily: "You have endeavored to state in your report what my orders to General Kautz were. That was no part of your report. I know what my orders were without any information from that source," adding, "certain it is that forty-five hundred of my best troops have been kept at bay by some fifteen hundred men, six hundred only of which were Confederate troops and the rest old men and boys, the cradle and the grave being robbed of about equal proportions to compose the force opposed to you."