Robert Stiles, Four years under Marse Robert

[96] shells bursting in my very face, and the bridge must have been struck repeatedly, the great splinters hurtling past and cutting the air like flashes of lightning, yet no one was hurt. Once across, we were ordered, “Forward into battery, left oblique, march!” which elaborate movement was executed by the men as if on drill. I could not refrain from glancing around, and was amazed to see every piece, limber, caisson and man in the exact mathematical position in which each belonged, and every man seemed to have struck the very attitude required by the drill-book. And there we all stood, raked by a terrific fire, to which we could not reply, being really a second line, the first-consisting of infantry alonehaving passed into the dense, forbidding forest in front, feeling for the enemy. And so it was most of the way to Malvern Hill. The country not admitting of the use of cavalry to any extent, we were constantly playing at “lostball,” and exposed to galling fire from a foe we could not see, and to whom we generally could not reply because our infantry was in the woods in front of us.

But two things delighted us greatly: Our old brigade had been in our rear when we dashed across the bridge, taking the fire from them-and not only did they witness this, but they were lying down behind us when we executed the beautiful movement and made the staunch, soldierly stand in the open field beyond; so they cheered us enthusiastically the next time we moved by them.

The second morning after,--just as we came into battery on the field of Frazier's (or Frayser's) farm, where the fighting had closed after dark the preceding day, and which on that morning presented perhaps the most ideal view of a battlefield I ever saw-captured cannon, exploded limbers and caissons, dead horses and dead men scattered over it in most picturesque fashion,--Col. Stephen D. Lee, of the artillery, afterwards lieutenant-general, rode out in front of our guns, took off his hat to us and said that he had witnessed and remarked upon our performance of two days ago, at the railroad bridge and in the field, as General Magruder had also; that nothing could have been more soldierly, and having thus shown ourselves equal to the most trying duty of the