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I heard Captain Poague, on being informed who No. 3 was, shout, "Ned Moore, where is that priming-wire?" I replied, "It is in the limber-chest where it belongs." There were a good many people around, and I did not wish it to appear that I had misplaced my little priming-wire in the excitement of covering Stonewall's retreat. The captain yelled, as I thought unnecessarily, "It isn't there!"
Standing at the head of the first piece, with all my faculties engrossed by the scene before me, I did not hear the order which should have sent me scampering to my seat on the limber-chest, and so suddenly found myself alone, with my comrades mounted and away in full career. A glance about me disclosed the fact that no other living thing was standing up within a radius of five hundred yards.
With that demoniacal huntsman's cry which is known in history as the "Rebel Yell," the little squad dashed forward and plunged into the far heavier lines of the enemy. There was a detached Federal gun there doing its work. It was a superb twelve-pounder, and Duncan's men quickly captured it with its limber-chest.
He observed next that the drivers of the limber-chest had dismounted and left their horses, and the horses being without a driver, backed the wheels of the limber over the ammunition. To prevent damage, he seized the off-leader by the bridle, turning them back to a front position. While doing this, he distinctly heard the minie-balls crashing through the bones of the horses.
A ball struck a limber-chest; a man lying on his face in the road, during a momentary pause of one of the companies, was perforated from head to foot: he never moved just continued to lie there; the flies began to buzz around the spot and settle on the clotted blood, that poured out from the fractured skull, in the dust of the road.
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