in Company C, Third Regiment, it was
different. He did not have the moral courage to resist the "secret
monitor," that silent whisperer of death. He had always asserted
that he would be killed in the first battle, and so strong was this
conviction upon him, that he failed to keep in line of battle on
another occasion, and had been censured by his officers for
cowardice. In this battle he was ordered in charge of a Sergeant, with
instructions that he be carried in battle at the point of the bayonet.
However, it required no force to make him keep his place in line,
still he continued true to his convictions, that his death was
certain. He went willingly, if not cheerfully, in line. As the column
was moving to take position on Mayree's Hill, he gave instructions
to his companions as he advanced what messages should be sent to
his wife, and while giving those instructions and before the command
reached its position he fell pierced through the heart.

Another instance that came under my own observation, that which some
chose to call "presentiment," was of a member in my company in East
Tennessee. He was an exceptionally good soldier and the very picture
of an ideal hero, tall, erect, and physically well developed, over six
feet in height, and always stood in the front rank at the head of the
company. While Longstreet was moving upon Knoxville, the morning
he crossed the Tennessee River before dawn and before there was any
indication of a battle, this man said to me, with as much coolness and
composure, as if on an ordinary subject, without a falter in his tone
or any emotion whatever: "Captain, I will be killed to-day. I have,
some money in my pocket which I want you to take and also to draw my
four months' wages now due, and send by some trusty man to my wife.
Tell her also--" but here I stopped him, told him it was childish to
entertain such nonsense, to be a man as his conduct had so often
in the past shown him to be. I joked and laughed at him, and in a
good-natured way told him the East Tennessee climate gave him that
disease known among soldiers as "crawfishing." This I did to withdraw
his mind from this gloomy brooding. We had no real battle, but a
continual skirmish with the enemy, with stray shots throughout the
day. As we were moving along in line of battle, I heard that peculiar
buzzing noise of a bullet, as if in ricochet, coming in our direction,
but high in the air. As it neared the column it seemed to lower
a