Today in History:

252 Series I Volume XXXVI-II Serial 68 - Wilderness-Cold Harbor Part II

Page 252 Chapter XLVIII. OPERATIONS IN SE. VA. AND N. C.

ing where their left had been in the morning. The enemy now massed heavily in my front and again advanced, but my men, sheltered by the railroad embankment, drove them back with but little loss to ourselves and very heavy to them. Between 4 and 5 o'clock the engagement ceased, except the firing of sharpshooters on either side, and before dark the enemy withdrew from the field. I had an aggregate of 1,500 men engaged; the enemy at least tow brigades. Our loss was 177, the enemy's estimated 1,000, and newspaper correspondents from the army of the enemy state that General Brooks, with five brigades and one battery of artillery, was in our front that day. In the action I was assisted at different times by two pieces of artillery sent to me at my request from the right, but they did me but little good, getting twice out of ammunition after very few discharges and going half a miles to the rear to replenish. In the close of the action they were not on the field. The Eleventh Regiment and Seventh Battalion arrived upon the battle-filed after night-fall, having been delayed upon the cars in coming from South Carolina. At 12 o'clock that night our whole force at the Junction was withdrawn by General Johnson to the line of Swift Creek.

On the 9th I was ordered to take a part of my brigade and make a reconnaissance in front of this line. I took the Twenty-first, the Eleventh, and a detachment of the Twenty-fifth, under Captain Carson. The object was accomplished, but from the broken and wooded nature of the ground I became more heavily engaged than I desired with the heavy force in my front, and my loss was severe. I append a statement of casualties in those actions.

Our of 7 field officers taken into the action of the 7th, 4 were killed or wounded. The brave Lieutenant-Colonel Dargan, of the Twenty-first, fell at the head of his men in the crisis of the fight on that day. Colonel Graham was there wounded in two places while cheering on his men. Lieutenant-Colonel Pressley fell at the same place with a dangerous wound and refused assistance, ordering forward into line the men who came to take him off the field. Lieutenant-Colonel Blake, of the Twenty-seventh, was slightly wounded. Captain Sellers, of the Twenty-fifth, was wounded and returned to the fight after his wound was dressed.

My staff-Captain Molony, Lieutenant Martin, Lieutenant Mazyck, and Captain Stoney-were greatly exposed in the discharge of their duties and behaved with their usual gallantry. Captain Stoney was shot through the body, but still survives. Captain Carlos Tracy, of South Carolina, who was acting as volunteer aide upon my staff, behaved with much efficiency and gallantry.

Colonel Gaillard, Colonel Pressley, and Colonel Graham, commanding regiments, behaved with distinguished gallantry, and after the fall of the two latter, Major Glover and Lieutenant-Colonel Dargan did all that could be done in supplying their places. After Colonel Dargan was killed Captain Wilds efficiently commanded his regiment till the close of the day.

The following men have been mentioned for meritorious conduct by their regimental commanders: First Sergt. Pickens Butler Watts, Company F; Sergt. J. P. Gibbons and Corpl. J. Bosier, same company; Sergt. J. B. Abney, Company E, and Private Aemilius Irving, Company A, of Twenty-seventh Regiment, and Lieutenants Moffett and Duc. Sergt. Willie V. Izlar, and Private Ira T. Shoemaker, of the Twenty-fifth. No report of the kind was received from the Twenty-first, in consequence of the fall of the field officers and the


Page 252 Chapter XLVIII. OPERATIONS IN SE. VA. AND N. C.