irst Lieutenant John B. Floyd,
Company K; First Lieutenant Musselman, Company E, and First Lieutenant
McDougal, commanding Company C. Lieutenant McDougal's arm was shattered
by a minie-ball whilst handing me the colors, detailed above. Captain
Stillwell received a very singular wound. A bullet struck the side of
his neck near the big artery and appeared to have gouged out a bit of
flesh and glanced off. It bled more than this circumstance would have
seemed to warrant, but the captain was sure he was not hurt and made
light of it. Swelling and pain speedily developed in his shoulder, and
it was found that the missile, instead of glancing off, had taken a
downward course and finally lodged near his shoulder-joint, a distance
of ten or twelve inches from where it entered. He was given leave of
absence on account of wounds, and the ball was cut out after his return
home, and ultimately the whole channel made by the ball had to be
opened, when it was found lined with whiskers which the ball had carried
in with it.

Most of those computed above as missing were undoubtedly killed, but had
not been so reported at that time. Our loss in that half-hour was nearly
one-third. One stand of our colors, the one whose staff was shot away in
my hand, was missing, and the other was badly torn by shells and
bullets.

CHAPTER XI

WHY FREDERICKSBURG WAS LOST

I promised to give my convictions relative to the responsibility for the
disaster of Fredericksburg, and I might as well do it here.

Recalling the fact heretofore stated that we seemed to have been thrown
against Marye's Heights to be sacrificed; that we were not ordered to
charge their works, but to advance and maintain a line of battle-fire
where such a thing was absolutely impossible, I come to the inquiry,
what was the character and purpose of the movement and why did it fail?
So thoroughly impressed was I that there was something radically wrong
about it, that I determined to solve that question if possible, and so
made a study of the subject at that time and later after my return home.
I had personal friends in the First and Sixth Corps, which had operated
on the extreme left, and I discussed with them the movements that day.
Finally, after my return home, I got access to Covode's congressional
reports on the conduct of the war covering that campaign, and from all
these sources learned what I then and now believe to be substantially
the facts about that campaign. T