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A Different Story.--Although much has been published in regard to an engagement between our troops and the Federalists at Bethel Church, still the following, from one of the
New York Yankees engaged in the affair, differs so widely from any other account yet given from a Northern source, that we deem it of sufficient importance to lay before our readers:
As a soldier ready to serve my country, I feel myself constrained to protest against the garbled accounts and false statements made by some of the
Northern papers concerning the fight at Big Bethel.
Such reports do us great injustice.
If, as these papers state, we were repulsed with a loss of but thirty or forty killed, every thinking man must say that we were the most arrant cowards on earth.
Such was not the case.
We fought bravely, and did not leave the field until after the number of killed and wounded proved to us that further attempts would be destructive.
We had some 4,500 men. The number of the enemy is not known, as they fought behind some earthworks.
Their number could not have been very great, for the works were of no extent.
Their batteries were so well served as to render it impossible for us to cross the stream, which was some 50 or 60 feet. We were exposed to a galling fire for some two or three hours, and only left the field when our men were failing in numbers from the deadly shots poured into us. The defeat was disgraceful, but a complete one, and no soldier wishes to mince the matter, for the officers are to blame for the incompetent manner in which the whole affair was conducted.
Our loss has been severe, and it is an insult to tell us that we have been repulsed with 100 killed and wounded. We have suffered too much from the incompetency of our officers, and do not wish to be insulted by lies of the press in reference to our want of courage.
We stood a murderous fire for three hours, and were driven back by an enemy we could not see, but who killed and wounded about three hundred of our men. It was then time for us to retreat, and if that retreat was effected in a disorderly manner, it was because our officers were incompetent to perform their duties.
Lieut. Greble and his regulars behaved gallantly, but the fire of the rebels was too well directed to make any impression.
One thing is certain — their pieces must have been served by good men, for, though few in number, they were fired with great rapidity.
