, we entered the famous Wilderness, soon to be made
renowned by the clash of arms, where Lee and Hooker met and shook
the surrounding country with the thunder of their guns a few months
afterwards, and where Grant made the "echoes ring" and reverberate
on the 5th and 6th of May, the year following. We found, too, the
"Chancellor House," this lone, large, dismal-looking building standing
alone in this Wilderness and surrounded on all sides by an almost
impenetrable forest of scrubby oaks and tangled vines. The house was
a large, old-fashioned hotel, situated on a cleared plateau, a
piazza above and below, reaching around on three sides. It was called
"Chancellorsville," but where the "ville" came in, or for what the
structure was ever built, I am unable to tell. This place occupied
a prominent place in the picture of the Battle of Chancellorsville,
being for a time the headquarters of General Hooker, and around which
the greater part of his cannon were placed. We took up camp in rear of
Fredericksburg, about two miles south of the city.

While here we received into our brigade the Fifteenth South Carolina
Regiment, commanded by Colonel DeSaussure, and the Third Battalion,
composed of eight companies and commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Rice.
As these are new additions, it will be necessary to give a brief
sketch of their organization and movements prior to their connection
with Kershaw's Brigade.

Soon after the battle of Bull Run or First Manassas, the Richmond
Government made a call upon the different States for a new levy to
meet the call of President Lincoln for three hundred thousand more
troops to put down the Rebellion. The companies that were to compose
the Fifteenth Regiment assembled at the old camping ground at
Lightwood Knot Spring, three miles above Columbia. They were:

Company A----Captain Brown, Richland.
Company B----Captain Gist, Union.
Company C----Captain Lewie, Lexington.
Company D----Captain Warren, Kershaw.
Company E----Captain Davis, Fairfield.
Company F----Captain Boyd, Union.
Company G----Captain McKitchen, Williamsburg.
Company H----Captain Farr, Union.
Company I----Captain Koon, Lexington.
Company K----Captain Bird, ----

(These names are given from the best information obtainable and may
not be exactly correct, but as the fortunes of war soon made radical
changes it is of little moment at this late date.) These companies
elected for their field o