down there, but not one that laughed."

War has its humorous as well as its serious side, and many a joke was
cracked in battle, or if not mentioned then, the joke was told soon
afterwards. It is recalled just here that in this battle an officer,
who had escaped being wounded up to that time, was painfully wounded.
When being borne on the way to the rear on a stretcher, he was heard
to exclaim: "Oh! that I had been a good man. Oh! that I had listened
to my mother." When he returned to the army, many a laugh was had at
his expense when these expressions would be reported. But the officer
got even with one of his tormentors, who was one of the bearers of the
litter upon which the officer was borne away, for while this young man
was at his best in imitating the words and tone of the wounded man,
he was suddenly arrested by the words: "Yes, I remember when a shell
burst pretty close you forgot me, and dropped your end of the litter."
The laugh was turned. All this, however, was in perfect good humor.

It has been shown how Kershaw's South Carolina Brigade closed the
breach in Lee's Army on the 6th of May, and turned disaster into a
glorious victory, and as the 12th of May, at "Bloody Angle," near
Spottsylvania Court house, will go down in history as one among the
most memorable battles of all time, I wish to show how another gallant
South Carolina Brigade (McGowan's) withstood the shock of the greater
portion of Grant's Army, and saved Lee's Army from disaster during
the greater part of one day. This account is also taken from
Captain Caldwell's "History of McGowan's Brigade." Being an active
participant, he is well qualified to give a truthful version, and I
give in his own language his graphic description of the battle of the
"Bloody Angle."

* * * * *

HISTORY OF MCGOWAN'S BRIGADE.

Reaching the summit of an open hill, where stood a little old house,
and its surrounding naked orchard, we were fronted and ordered forward
on the left of the road.... Now we entered the battle. There were two
lines of works before us; the first or inner line, from a hundred and
fifty to two hundred yards in front of us; the second or outer line,
perhaps a hundred yards beyond it, and parallel to it. There were
troops in the outer line, but in the inner one only what appeared to
be masses without organization. The enemy were firing in front of the
extreme right of the brigade, and their balls came obliqu