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Updated: May 4, 2025
Our Corps, the Seventeenth, was the extreme left of the army, and were moving up toward the City from the East. We run onto the Rebs about sundown the 21st. They had some breastworks on a ridge in front of us, and we had a pretty sharp fight before we drove them off.
We came in here and got our legs all tangled up in these cussed briers, and then we begin to fight and the rebs had an easy time of it. Don't tell me it's just luck! I know better. It's this derned old " The friend seemed jaded, but he interrupted his comrade with a voice of calm confidence. "It'll turn out all right in th' end," he said. "Oh, the devil it will!
Why, he'd a-cut a swath through the free an' easy big business gamblers an' pirates of them days; just as he cut a swath through the hearts of the ladies when he went gallopin' past on that big horse of his, sword clatterin', spurs jinglin', his long hair flyin', straight as an Indian, clean-built an' graceful as a blue-eyed prince out of a fairy book an' a Mexican caballero all rolled into one; just as he cut a swath through the Johnny Rebs in Civil War days, chargin' with his men all the way through an' back again, an' yellin' like a wild Indian for more.
About 2 p. m. we had been sent out to skirmish along the edge of the wood in which, as our generals suspected, the Rebs lay massing for a charge across the slope, upon the crest of which our army was posted. We had barely entered the underbrush when we met the heavy formations of Magruder in the very act of charging.
The cannoneers dismounted from the horses or dropped off the caissons, and glad of a rest lit their pipes and lay down or wandered about in search of water. The Colonel, pleased to be on time, was in gay good-humour as he talked to the men or listened to the musketry fire far to the left. He said to a group of men, "We are all as grey as the Rebs, boys, but it is good Pennsylvania dust."
The Rebs didn't stand to meet them, but fell back behind a barn. The batteries burned that, and then they tried to form line again, but no use. As soon as our fellows gave the yell, they were off like all possessed.
We made as much fuss as possible, and with better success than I anticipated, for it seems that the rebs conceived Stono to be a feint, and the real object at Bull's Bay, supposing, from the number of steamers and boats, that we had several thousand men. Now came an aide from General Gillmore, at Port Royal, with your cipher-dispatch from Midway, so I steamed down to Port Royal to see him.
He had been all through the American war under Grant, and spins some long yarns about the Northerners and the "cussed rebs." As there are twenty-seven bunks in our cabin, and only four passengers, there is of course plenty of room and to spare. But there is also a "lady" passenger at our end of the ship, and she has all the fifteen sleeping-places in her cabin to herself.
Being satisfied that I could remove the flooring at any time within a few minutes, I told my fellow prisoners what I had said, and what I had seen done, and that when everything had become quiet, I would guarantee to get them out with ten minutes work. Some of the rebs were not satisfied, and insisted upon loosening the floor again at once, and despite all I could do, they persisted in doing so.
They were well-drilled and disciplined, and made a gallant and successful fight, though with heavy loss. In their first fight they had faced Lee's best veterans, and defeated them. The old soldiers were inclined to regard it as rather a joke the lively manner in which the rebs welcomed them to the front.
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