was to stand to our arms and fight the battle through. Therefore, though we were cold, and ragged, and hungry; though we were abandoned by that country for which we had suffered so long and so terribly; though thousands of the enemy held high revel before us, waking the echoes far and near with shoutings and the strains of bands and bugles-we lay in grim repose, and expected the renewal of the mortal conflict.

"Theirs not to make reply;
Theirs not to reason why;
Theirs but to do or die;
Into the valley of death

Rode the Six Hundred !"

CHAPTER XVII.

ACTIVE OPERATIONS UNTIL APRIL 1, 1865.

THE position of the regiments on the line has already been related, but it will bear repeating. The First regiment was on the right, connecting with McRae's brigade, of Heth's division, the Twelfth regiment was on the left of the First, the Thirteenth next it, then the Fourteenth, then Orr's regiment of Rifles. The sharpshooters of the brigade were camped back of the line of works, in rear of the Fourteenth regiment. Brigade headquarters was at Boisseau's house, about three hundred yards in rear of the First regiment. The brigade officers were as follows: Brig. Gen. Samuel McGowan, commanding; Capt. J. W. Riddick, assistant adjutant-general, vice Capt. L. C. Haskell, who was, about the first of the year, transferred to Lieut. Gen. Anderson's staff; Lieut. G. A. Wardlaw, aidede-camp, (he not being exchanged in time for the campaign, I acted in his stead;) Maj. Harry Hammond, brigade quartermaster, assisted by Capt. R. E. B. Hewetson, and, for a time, by Capt. R. L. McCaughrin; Maj. A. B. Wardlaw, brigade commissary, assisted by Capt. J. B.

Edwards; Lieut. C. G. Thompson, brigade ordnance officer; Dr. T. Evans, brigade surgeon.

The regiments had the following field-officers: First regiment, Col. C. W. McCreary, Lieut. Col. A. P. Butler, Maj. E. D. Brailsford; Twelfth regiment, Lieut. Col. T. F. Clyburne, (Lieut. Col. Clyburne was not promoted to the full colonelcy because disabled, and the senior captain of the regiment was not made major because disabled by wounds;) Thirteenth regiment, Col. J. F. Hunt, Lieut. Col. Wm. Lester, Maj. D. R. Duncan; Fourteenth regiment, Col. J. N. Brown, Lieut. Col. Edward Croft, Maj. H. H. Harper; Orr's regiment of Rifles, Col. G. M. Miller, Lieut. Col. J. T. Robertson, no major, for Capt. Rogers, senior captain, was a prisoner. All the regiments were under the actual command of their colonels,* except the Twelfth regiment, which was commanded by Capt. R. M. Kerr. The Fourteenth regiment was the largest at this time, the Rifles next, the Thirteenth next, the Twelfth next, the First the smallest of all. The whole effective force of the brigade was 1,398 officers and men. Of these about a hundred and twenty-five were sharpshooters.

The first demonstration made by the enemy against our line, in 1865, was on the 5th of February. That day, about noon, the brigade was ordered to prepare for the march, and in an hour afterwards was put in motion. We followed Heth's division, which moved down the works towards Hatcher's run. When we reached about the centre of the camps of Heth's division we were halted, arranged almost as a skirmish line, and held until night. Sharp skirmishing and some cannonading was heard about Hatcher's run. That night we lay in the winter-quarters vacated by Heth's division. During the night Davis's Mississippi brigade returned, and gave us accounts of the firing we had heard. It was a small affair. We returned to camp the next morning.

We lay in our quarters Monday night, 6th, and were again moved to. the right on the morning of the 7th. It

The battalion of sharpshooters was commanded by Capt. W.

S. Dunlop, of the Twelfth regiment, and consisted of the remains of the battalion of the last year, with the addition of two non-commissioned officers and seventy-five privates.

now sleeted heavily and the cold was piercing. We heard firing on the right, both of artillery and small arms, during the greater part of the day. We took refuge from the weather in the winter-quarters along the works. There was an important engagement near Hatcher's run. The Federals had established themselves about the stream, and seemed disposed to advance somewhat on the flank of the Confederate main line. Two divisions of Gordon's corps were sent in to drive them back, but upon encountering a large body of the enemy, they were for a time stopped, and finally forced to give way. Brig. Gen. Pegram, commanding one of these divisions, was killed. Mahone's division, under Gen. Finnegan, was now ordered up. These charged the enemy, drove them back to their fortifications, and thus relieved the Confederate line. We returned to our winter-quarters at dark.

Two things occurred about this time which had an evident tendency to demoralize our troops. One of them was the passage of a bill, in Congress, which authorized the raising of negro troops. The matter was left, in great measure, to Gen. Lee's decision, and Gen. Lee consulted. the army. Very few of us had any objection to the measure, but it created considerable despondency by showing us how little hope of success was entertained by the Confederate authorities. The other circumstance was the call made upon us for an expression of our sentiments in regard to the war. We had determined to carry on the contest as long as it should be at all possible, and we desired Gen. Lee, the Congress, and the people of the South to know it; and therefore we did not hesitate to publish resolutions of as warlike a tone as the most ultra-secessionist could demand. But we were obliged to feel that that nation was on the point of submission, which required to be sustained in its position by a half-famished, half-naked army of fifty thousand men. The night after the resolutions were adopted, we serenaded Gen. McGowan, who entertained and animated us by a speech of the same tenor.

The picket system was changed about this time, so that a regiment was sent out at a time, instead of details from all the regiments. But we soon returned to the old system of details.

The execution of the deserters, mentioned in the last chapter, took place during this period, but that needs no further description. Drilling was recommenced now. For a time there were two drills a day, sometimes both in the school of the company, sometimes one in the school of the battalion. In the month of March Gen. Lee ordered eight drills a day, twice as great a number as I ever heard of being performed in the army. I believe, however, that we contented ourselves with four. The men called this " a God's plenty," and, barring the profanity, I was entirely of their opinion. We needed drill, certainly, for we had grown careless and inaccurate in a great degree. But we needed it chiefly as a discipline. The war had reached that stage where something more than the internal impulse is required to urge one up to his whole duty. This remark I do not at all restrict to our brigade, for we were, beyond all doubt, as well disciplined as any troops I saw in the Army of Northern Virginia.

The celebrated abortive attempt at peace negotiations occurred now.

On the night of the 24th of March, the brigade received orders to form and be ready to receive an attack at three o'clock the next morning. At the appointed time we were put under arms along the works. Soon afterwards a heavy cannonade was opened about Petersburg, and after that discharges of musketry became audible. The day dawned, but the anticipated attack was not made on us. We were not long in learning that Gen. Lee had advanced a portion of Gordon's corps and a part or all of Bushrod Johnson's division against the enemy's works, opposite the famous crater caused by Grant's mine the summer before. The two lines were very near together at this point, and it was here that there had been a continuous sharpshooting for months. So the Federals were easily surprised. The Confederates drove them from their outer works, captured a fort and several hundred prisoners, and killed and wounded a good number. But our troops would not follow up their advantage and break through the enemy's main-line, as they might easily have done. On the contrary, they remained in the outer works until the enemy opened on them from forts on the flanks, and at the same time sent for

ward a fresh line to attack them. Thus enfiladed and threatened in front, the Confederates gave back to their former position, with a heavy loss in killed, wounded and prisoners. The orders sent to us probably originated in the expectation that Grant would retort an assault on his lines at one point by an attack on ours at another.

The firing about Petersburg ceased entirely about sunrise, and we were left quiet enough for two or three hours. But about nine o'clock we heard a few discharges of artillery a half mile or more on our right, and after it, an irregular skirmish firing. Before long, we could see the enemy moving troops in that direction and immediately in our front. The brigade was formed along the works at once. The enemy now moved more boldly. We saw several regiments of them pass over the small hills between their picket-line and ours, and halt as they gained the cover of the ridge just out of their picket. It became plain that our pickets were to be charged. They came in regular lines-of-battle; our picket was not quite a skirmish-line. We stood on the works and watched the movement anxiously. But we had not long to wait. The Federals became visible on the ridge, then raised a cheer and poured forward against our skirmishers. We, at the works, raised a shout, and a few of the skirmishers took heart enough from it to reply. They opened fire upon the enemy, many of them shooting into the very faces of the assailants. But it was of no avail. The enemy swarmed up to the rifle-pits, flapping their banners, and cheering and firing, and, in scarcely more time than it has required to describe it, captured the picket-line and swept up and down like a flame. Some men of ours fought till the last, and were shot down at the distance of a few paces; others ran away, but the majority were captured. These were men from another brigade, Thomas's, I believe. Next, more troops advanced against the picket-line in front of the extreme left of our brigade. This was held by details from our brigade. The enemy found more difficulty in breaking this line, but they did it, capturing a few and rolling the remainder back towards the left and rear. The same movement was made upon our right, so that, in the course of an hour, the Confederates lost near two miles of picket-line.