Zzzwilliamsburg and Sharpsburg.
At
Williamsburg on the 5th of May, 1862, he led the Twenty-fourth Virginia and Fifth North Carolina Regiments of his brigade in an assault upon a six-gun battery and redoubt, defended by the brigade of
General Hancock, and was badly wounded in the charge.
The movement was so bravely made that it won from the chivalrous
Hancock the compliment which
President Davis quotes in his history of the
Confederacy: ‘That the Twenty-fourth Virginia and Fifth North Carolina Regiments should have the word immortal inscribed upon their banners.’
He reported for duty at
Malvern Hill before he was well of his wound, and made his mark at
Cedar Run,
Groveton, and
Manassas on
Jackson's northern march to
Sharpsburg.
Critical conjuncture was that of the Confederate army there on September 17, 1862-the bloodiest day in American history.
With a river at his back and his entire command in the front, without reserves,
Lee, with less than 40,000 men, resisted
McClellan all day
[
288]
long with his heavy masses, including two corps that never fired a gun.
Jackson's Division, under
J. R. Jones, and
Ewell's Division, under
Lawton, were nearly annihilated by the tremendous assault of
Sumner's and
Hooker's Corps.
Jones was wounded;
Starke, succeeding him, was killed;
Lawton was wounded, and
Early, succeeding him, found but little more than his own brigade left in fighting shape.
Assisted by
Grigsby and some 300 men of
Jackson's Division, he, with his brigade, repulsed one assault, when suddenly
Green's Federal Division penetrated our lines and appeared on his right flank.
Promptly facing his men by flank to meet it, and marching behind a rocky ledge, he repelled these intruders, and then, reinforcements arriving, he joined them and beat back
Sumner's Corps.
