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[259]

I forgot to mention that Captain Hammond's Company of the Cavalry had been acting as couriers for General Ewell till just before we left the Rappahannock; but Captain Elijah V. White's (Loudoun Rangers) was then substituted and has been acting ever since, besides doing a great deal of scouting duty.

At the battle of Gaines's Mill or Cold Harbor, on Friday, June 27th, Colonel Isaac G. Seymour Sixth Louisiana (then in command of the brigade, General Taylor having been sick since Port Republic) was killed, so was Major C. R. Wheat First Special (Tiger) battalion. Lieutenant-Colonel D. B. Penn, Seventh Louisiana slightly wounded. General Elzey was at first thought to be mortally wounded; but is recovering. Major Hooper, Twenty-first Georgia, was severely wounded. Major Nelson was here slightly wounded. The day before the fight at Malvern Hill General Early, just recovering from his wound received at Williamsburg, was assigned to the command of Elzey's brigade which he still retains. At Malvern Hill we were under a very heavy artillery fire for several hours, but no field officers killed or wounded. The Louisiana brigade was pretty hotly engaged for a while, being ordered to charge by some mounted officer, nobody knew whom, and being unsupported by any of the troops on its left (Whiting's), it was necessarily used pretty roughly, until General Winder and his brigade came to its help.

At Westover, near Harrison's Landing, while our division held the advance, our skirmishers and the Yankees did some firing, and General Ewell, who was sitting at a house three hundred yards behind the skirmishers, had a hole put through his cap in some mysterious way without hurting him. At Gaines's Mill his favorite mare was killed under him, and a ball passed through his boot leg and slightly bruised his ankle.

Reports of the brigades while at Westover showed barely 3,000 men for duty in the division. But our loss in killed and wounded while on the Peninsula was nearly 1,000--namely, 987.

While encamped at Strawberry Hill, near Richmond, the Sixteenth Mississippi, one of the very best regiments in the division, was detached from it, and just before we started for Gordonsville the Maryland line was ordered to Staunton to recruit. The Virginia battery which had joined us at Winchester, but on account of want of drill had been only brought into action at Port Republic (accidentally and for a few rounds only) and at Malvern Hill, was left behind at Richmond “for purposes of instruction.” It was afterwards called Carrington's Charlottesville Artillery.


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