The battle of Resaca began May 14, '64. Walker's division, to which we belonged, was held in reserve during the morning and at 12 p. m., as the fighting grew fiercer, we were ordered up to reinforce Stewart's division in our front. A pontoon bridge had been laid across the Oostenaula river and a courier stationed on its bank to hurry the men across, as the railroad embankment on the other side would protect them from the fire of a Federal battery, which had secured the exact range of the road over which we were passing. As we approached the bridge Capt. Martin, commanding the company next in our front, halted the column a moment to hear what the courier was saying. As the march was resumed, a solid shot from the battery struck directly in a file of fours in Martin's company killing two and wounding a third, not more than ten feet from where I stood. The time occupied in the halt would have about sufficed to have covered the intervening distance, and certainly saved the lives of some of the Oglethorpes and possibly my own. Crossing the river, Gen. W. H. T. Walker passed us going to the front and as he rode by, another shot from the battery struck immediately behind him, barely missing his horse. Glancing around at the dust it had raised and turning to us with a smile on his face, he said, "Go it boots," and galloped on to the head of the division. On this, as well as on every other occasion when under fire, he seemed not only absolutely indifferent to danger, but really to enjoy its presence. Gen. Cabell, in recalling his association with Gen. Walker in the '60's, said that battle always brought to his eyes an unusual glitter and that he thought him the bravest man he had ever known.
A hero in three wars, severely wounded at Okeechobee, Fla., and at Molino Del Rey and Chapultpec, Mex., he fell at last gallantly leading his division at the battle of Atlanta, July 22, '64, and I am sure no battle soil on God's green earth in all the ages was ever stained by braver or by nobler blood than William Henry Walker's.
A TWILIGHT PRAYER MEETING.
On May 19, '64, Sherman and Johnston were fronting each other near Kingston, Ga. In the skirmishing that day the Oglethorpes had suffered some casualties, among them one that saddened all the company. Hugh Legare Hill, son of Hon. Joshua Hill, a beardless boy, had been shot through the head and instantly killed. He had joined us some months before at Thunderbolt and becoming restive under the inaction of coast service, had applied for a transfer to Johnston's army. Chafing under the delay brought on by military red tape in such matters, and anxious to secure a place on the firing line he had urged the officers to press the matter as he wanted to reach his new command in time for the opening of the spring campaign. Before the papers were returned our regiment was ordered to Dalton and the transfer was abandoned.
Poor Legare! The spring campaign had not yet drifted into summer before his bright young life, that knew no other season, but its spring, had found its sad and sudden ending on the firing line, a place for which he longed so ardently and met so bravely.
In the evening of that day we occupied a line near Cass Station, a line chosen by Johnston for a general and decisive engagement with Sherman's army. The Fabian policy, that had marked the campaign from its opening, was to be ended. The gage of battle was thrown down and Atlanta's fate was to be settled before another sunset. Every arrangement for the coming conflict was made and the men ready and anxious for the fray were resting on their arms. At the twilight hour two members of the Oglethorpes left their places in the ranks and retired to a quiet spot in the forest not far away to talk with God. No church spire raised its lofty summit heavenward. Under the open sky in one of "God's first temples," as dusk was deepening into night, they kneeled together and each in turn, in tones of earnest supplication, asked for God's protecting care upon themselves and on their comrades in the coming battle and for His blessing on the flag for which they fought and prayed. And when their prayers were ended, they pledged each other that if it was the fate of either one to fall, the other would act a brother's part and give such aid and comfort as he could.
Returning to their places in the line, they wrapped their worn, grey blankets around them and lay down under the starlight to pass in calm and quiet sleep, the night before the battle. I have attended many larger prayer meetings since that day; I have heard many petitions to a Throne of Grace, clothed in more cultured phrase, and yet but few that seemed more earnest or filled with simpler trust in God.
Under the urgent protest of Hood and Polk, Joe Johnston's plans were changed and the promised battle beside the Etowah was never fought. I know not what the issue would have been, personal or national. I know that if the hundred and fifty thousand men marshalled upon that field on that May day had met in deadly strife, the shadows would have fallen on many a Northern and many a Southern home. And yet somehow I can but feel that if that evening's bloody promise had been fulfilled and in the gathering twilight at its close our company roll was called to mark the living and the dead, my friend and comrade, Steed, and I, whose humble prayers had broken the silence of the evening air to reach no other ears but ours and God's, would in His kindly providence have answered, "Here."
TOM HOWARD'S SQUIRREL BEAD.
On May 28, '64, we were on skirmish line near Dallas, Ga. The remainder of the brigade had left the trenches in our rear to reinforce some other point in the line and the pickets were holding the fort alone. A Federal sharpshooter had secured a concealed position at short range and was picking off the men in a way highly satisfactory to himself, perhaps, but decidedly unpleasant to us. We had been on duty all the night before and worn out from loss of sleep. I sat down with my back to a tree as a protection from careless bullets and fell asleep. Will Daniel, in a similar position and for like reasons, was dozing at the next tree twenty feet away. A courier came down the line and waking me asked for the officer in command. I pointed to Will and as the courier laid his hand on Will's shoulder to wake him, a ball crashed through his knee, causing him to scream with pain. A little while before Louis Picquet had received the wound that cost him his leg, and a little later McCurdy of our company, fell with a ball through his head.