The Montgomery advertiser., 1906-08-19

breastworks On the way occurred a singular phenomenon--the whole reg
 iment was struck by lightning. The Train was just beginning to fall from q thunder cloud. Captain Walker winn. Adjutant General of the Brigade. had been riding with me. and our talk was about th1 Federal battery that, appar-s ently about . mile and a half to our
 right over the river. was occasionally firing. We agreed that we were with in its range, but that even If 1t should turn it's guns upon us we would be in but little danger, on account of the dis tance. Just as Winn had started of briskly and was about g horses length ahead there was crash. My first im- pression was that a shell from tho bat tery we had been speaking of had bursted In my head. I was severely shocked. especially in my head and fleff leg. but did not fall. Captain winn l had fallen from his horse, though he was soon revived. and every man in the regiment was more or less shocked, many in the two rear companies being strickcn to the grond. Several of them were sent to the Hospital. but all eyen- tually recovered.
 we continued our march in a drench- l ing rain, and here I quote from Cap | tain Fagan's article on The Battle of Salem Church" in the Philadelphia Times. July '. 1888:
 .Approachfne the Chancellor House. the half drowned men filled the air with terrible yelis; the shouting would begin at one end of the line and pass to l the other, backwards and forwards | What in hell are you yelling aboutT demanded Major Mills, of Anderson's Stan.
 : TO scare Fighting Joe Hooker re- piled a soldier We laid down in the mud expecting to charge Rockers works at sunrise. Advancing at dawn my picket line, was Informed that the l enemy's works were deserted. Await l ing orders. we passed the Chancellor House. Here was the most sickening sight I had ever beheld. Half buried | in the mud were dead Federal soldiers, Idismounted artillery. broken eaissons, disemboweled horses, muskets, cam | teens, in fact, the whole paraphernalia of war in indescrihable confusion. The l blackened walls of the Chancellor House stood aas a mighty sentinel guarding the whole. Climbing within Rockers works examined them closely--mas- siye. intricate, crossing each other like l the sauares on a checkerboard. Open boxes of ammunition were placed every | few yards. I have often thought that l Andsrson's division could never have 1 carried those works unless panic \ had seized the defenders"
 Those works were the most formidable l I ever saw. They were carefully con- structed of fresh green logs piled upon | each other like longitudinal pyramids las high as q mans shoulders. Above on stakes, with q crack between for muskets. was g large head-los. For 1 each fie-cIoser and Field offfcer, at proper distances in the rear. was sim- l liar breast-work of logs. In front ot | ~1xe fAr hundred 1 yafds, were chsveaux-de-frises con- structed of trees fallen with their tops towards the front and with every limb trimmed and sharpened. The growth | of small tres here In the wilderness was
 SO heavy and these Instructions so for-
 | midable as to make 1t almost impossible
 to climb over them from the front At
 the hundred yard limit from the works
 | the small trees and undergrowth left
 standing were so thick that to bring up
 artillery to the attack would have been
 1 impossible. Any assault upon the
 Il works must therefore have been made
 by infantry alone. Practically the worka
 were impregnable. if defended wifi
 spirit.
 I "old Joe Hooker" General Jeh Stu I art is recorded to have sung wal
 mighty glad to get out of the wilder ! ness" and his order Issued to his troops aIIerl LnetF IeluIn to bAG AtAth staS " the Rappahannock, in which this Gen z eraI congratulated his troops upor
 their recent operations, would seem t' indicate that he really was glad t'
 have gotten safely away from thos' breast works: but assuredly he was m gIadder than we were. when we look led at them. The Government at Wash
 lington did hot seem to share the jubi
 lation in which General Hooker tndulg ed. Witnin about six weeks Hooke was Femoved and General Meade pu in coEnmand of the Army of the Poto s mac This was the fifth decapitatioi , of General of this army by Genera Lee and This people,
 Salem Church was the last bIov
 given to Hooker. That and the re |, treat of Sedgwick's corps the next da, s across the river, decided the battl' { lof Chancellorsville. Soon afterwafd . Ithe two armies took up again their for
 mer position north and south of tn Rappahannock river. Lees army wa } too small, Longstreets corps being ab , sent at Suffolk. to justify any at } tempt to follow the defeated F'eder aIs across the river. and so again fo ] a month to come the sounds of hostii bugles were heard up and down tn , Rsppahannock for twenty miles. morn ling and evening; again there was a tae it truce between the two armies, s@ni ,f again piekets talked to. and perhap , traded with. each other across th' stream.
 Lieutenant Colonel Herbert was nos
 lin command Colonel Royston wal
 never able, after his wound at Saler
 Church. to return to the regiment ii
 was retired in the autumn of 1864 whereupon Lieutenant Colonel Hcrber was promoted to be colonei; Majo Enrich Lieutenant Colonel and Cap ! tain Nall Major.
 Again the Sth was at Banks Ford and now occurred the only remember
 ed instance, until just as we starte on the Pennsylvania campaign, of fir ] ing here across the Rappahannock. Tn Federals had been using balloons eve , Isince Mcclellan was before Yorktown TO many of us they seemed at frs
 formidable, as an observer so high n in the air ought to be able we though to give our positions with accuracy 5 IatfNrly. I however. since we had so of :: ten been victorious in spite of thes ! nretentious observers. we had come t
 laugh at the skyscrapers that alway !, kent SO we'll out of range of our artil Iervmen. But one morning, now, per haps. about the last of May saw 7 while on picket duty just about sunris a balloon going up from behind
 wooded hilltop only a few hundre , wards away. for a nearby look at ou lines This seemed just little tu i familiar. and SO the next morning, wit , the permission of General Wilcox
 stationed just behind the brow of . t,, s. sioId ntoces AQafn the rre