The Photographic History of The Civil War: in ten volumes, Thousands of Scenes Photographed 1861-65, with Text by many Special Authorities, Volume 8: Soldier Life and Secret Service.
Francis Trevelyan Miller, Ed.

[162] boxes, reminders of its late occupation. At that time there probably was not a Federal soldier nearer than the further side of Beaver Dam Creek, nearly a mile distant. But we were to hear from them before long.

Having passed through the straggling little village we were halted again just beyond, in a dip of the ground through which coursed a small rivulet, and some of us took the opportunity to fill canteens. It was while waiting there that we received the first hostile shots from the guns beyond the creek. They soon got our range and it began to look like real war at last.

It was at this point that, for the first time, I saw a man killed in battle. We were standing to arms awaiting orders to advance; another regiment of the brigade was supporting us a short distance in the rear—the Sixtieth Virginia, under Colonel Starke, who was killed later while commanding a Louisiana brigade at Sharpsburg, in September, 1862. A shell plowed the crest of the elevation in front, and our line made a profound obeisance as it passed over; it seemed as if it must clear us but about reach the Sixtieth, and as I ducked I glanced back that way and witnessed its effect in their ranks. The body of a stalwart young fellow suddenly disappeared, and on the ground where he had stood was a confused mass of quivering limbs which presently lay still—the same shell, as I learned afterward, carried away the top of a man's head in our own regiment.

Another took effect soon after, as we were moving out by the left flank, knocking over several men and killing one of them. By this time the fire had grown quite brisk, and we lost more men as we lay in the open field before entering some woods still more to the left, where the regiment commenced firing, against an imaginary foe, I have cause to believe. Yet, these same skittish troops, under fire for the first time, just four days later charged and captured a regular battery of 12-pounder guns and were complimented on the field by