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regiment.
With their battery in our front, their infantry in front, upon my flank and rear, the case seemed desperate to the last degree; but by causing the rear rank of my regiment to face about, we thus met and fought them on all sides; succeeded in driving them off and holding our position, silenced and captured their battery of Parrott guns.
One of the pieces was brought to the rear by a detail from my own regiment.
Some other brigade or command passed over the ground where the other pieces were left, and I understand, claimed to have captured the battery.’
General Beauregard accorded the honor to another, ‘in conjunction with Johnson,’ but the gallant Keeble, with his Seventeenth and Twenty-third Tennessee, drove the enemy from the battery after one of the fiercest contests of the war and fairly carried off the honors.
General Butler, commanding the ‘army of the James,’ in his official report, makes this light reference to the battle: ‘The enemy, taking advantage of a very thick fog, made an attack upon the right of General Smith's line (the Eighteenth army corps), and forced it back with some confusion and considerable loss.
The troops having been on incessant duty for five days, I retired at leisure within my own lines.’
He reported his losses during the month of May at Port Walthall, Swift creek and other skirmishes, including Drewry's Bluff, at 5,958 killed, wounded and captured. In spite of Butler's flippant report, the battle was a disastrous one to him. Major-General Gilmore, commanding the Tenth corps, at 7:25 a. m. asked General Butler in a written dispatch if it were true that General Brooks' (commanding division in Eighteenth corps) right was turned and a 20-pounder battery lost.
General Butler answered, ‘No truth in report.’
Very soon after this, Butler dispatched Gilmore: ‘Brooks is falling back to second line; Weitzel is also falling back.’
In a little while, at 9:30 a. m., General Gilmore states that he received a dispatch from Butler
Atlanta, Ga. 1899.
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