behind the second line of works. After firing a round or two,
the Confederates raised the old Rebel yell and went for their second
line with a rush. Here General Hardee led his men in person, charging
at their head on horseback. The troops carried everything before them;
the enemy in double columns and favorably entrenched, was glad to take
cover in the thicket in the rear. On the extreme left our troops were
less successful, being held in check by strong breastworks and a
dense thicket between the enemy and the troops of General Bragg. After
sweeping the enemy from the field, General Hardee found it necessary
to halt and reform his line and during this interval the enemy made
an unsuccessful assault upon the troops of General Stuart. After
nightfall and after all the killed and wounded had been removed from
the field, General Johnston moved the troops back to the line occupied
in the morning and threw up fortifications. Here we remained until the
21st; McLaws was detached and placed on the left of Hoke; the cavalry
deployed as skirmishers to our left. There was a considerable gap
between our extreme left and the main body of cavalry, and this break
the writer commanded with a heavy Hue of skirmishers. Late in the
day the enemy made a spirited attack upon us, so much so that General
McLaws sent two companies of boys, formerly of Fizer's Brigade of
Georgia Militia. The boys were all between sixteen and eighteen, and a
finer body of young men I never saw. He also sent a regiment of North
Carolina Militia, consisting of old men from fifty to sixty, and
as these old men were coming up on line the enemy were giving us
a rattling fire from their sharpshooters. The old men could not be
induced to come up, however. The Colonel, a Venerable old gray-beard,
riding a white horse, as soon as the bullets began to pelt the pines
in his front, leaped from his horse and took refuge behind a large
tree. I went to him and tried every inducement to get him to move up
his men on a line with us, but all he would do was to grasp me by the
hand and try to jerk me down beside him. "Lie down, young man," said
he, "or by God you'll be shot to pieces. Lie down!" The old militiaman
I saw was too old for war, and was "not built that way." But when
I returned to the skirmish line, on which were my own brigade
skirmishers, reinforced by the two boy companies, the young men were
fighting with a glee and abandon I never saw equalled. I am sorry to
reco