I was correct in my
last letter to you when I predicted that the great battle had commenced
(Chickahominy or Gaines Mills). The conflict raged with great fury after I
finished writing, and it lasted from three o'clock until ten that night. The cannonading
was so continuous at one time that I could scarcely hear the musketry at all.
There was one incessant boom and roar for three hours without any cessation.
Next morning (28th) the battle began anew, but there was not nearly so much
cannonading, because our men rushed upon the Yankees and took their cannon. The
musketry, though, was terrific. It reminded me of myriads of hailstones falling
upon a house top. I could see the smoke and the bombs burst in the air, and
could hear the shouts of our men as they would capture the Yankee batteries.
Our brigade took the
advance in the morning when the battle commenced, and after we routed them we
did not get a chance to fight them again until we had driven them about eight
or ten miles from where we started them. They rallied there and made a stand,
but our troops rushed at them again and drove them to—God only knows where! A
Yankee officer (a prisoner) told me they had no idea General Jackson was
anywhere about here, and he acknowledged that General McClellan was completely
outwitted. I tell you the Yankee "Napoleon” has been badly defeated.
Our colonel
surprised his men by his bravery. My brother Billie is greatly mortified
because he was too sick to be in the fight. He is still hardly able to walk.
Our regiment had eight killed and forty wounded. Orr's Regiment and the First
South Carolina were badly cut up in an attempt to capture a battery. (The
former had 81 killed and 234 wounded, and the latter 20 killed and 125
wounded).
I was on the ground
yesterday (Saturday) where some of the hardest fighting took place. The dead
were lying everywhere and were very thick in some places. One of our regiments
had camped in some woods there and the men were lying among the dead Yankees
and seemed unconcerned.
The most saddening
sight was the wounded at the hospitals, which were in various places on the
battlefield. Not only are the houses full, but even the yards are covered
with them. There are so many that most of them are much neglected. The people
of Richmond are hauling them away as fast as possible. At one place I saw the
Yankee wounded and their own surgeon attending to them. There are no crops or
fences anywhere, and I saw nothing which had escaped the Yankees except one
little Guinea fowl. I thought our army was bad enough, but the country over
which the Yankees have been looks like some barren waste. On my way to the
battlefield I met a negro who recognized me and told me that your brother Edwin
was wounded in the breast and had gone to Richmond. I fear there is some truth
in it.
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