The Ocala evening star. [volume] (Ocala, Fla.) 1895-1943, 1916-09-15

and his return to duty. Let's get back
to James Island. On the 10Th of July
'62, General Hagood being in COM
mand of the Confederate forces, was
ordered to make a reconnaissance to-
wards the Stone river with several
regiments. That part of the island |
was then held by considerable force
of the enemy, most of them being ne
gro troops under command of Colonel |
Montgomery. Arrangements were
made for this movement to be made |
early in the morning. Our forces
were marched out during the night to
the line where our farthest pickets
were on duty. 1t was done in silence
and we reached our picket line with
out the enemy knowing that any unu-
sual was going on. While the dark
ness was still over us our line of bat
tie was formed and line of Skin
mishers thrown out in front and de-
ployed. AS usual the Edisto Rifles
were in the skirmish line and Capt.
Izlar was placed in command Of the
entire force of skirmishers.. When all
was ready we quietly waited until
early dawn when the outline of man
could be seen about twenty yards
away and then the order for the
skirmishers to move forward was
quietly given by passing it along
- THn hr11rl coll
was not used at first although Galway
was on hand to sound the commands
and did do so after we struck the en-
envy. We were ordered not to fire
gun until the enemy discovered US.
Now the planters on the sea islands
built their fences by digging trenches
and throwing dirt up so as to make an
embankment and then on this planted
hedge shrubbery which made thick
and almost impenetrable hedge fence.
1t was behind one of these that we
found the enemy's pickets, thickly
posted besides having a number of
them in reserve lying at a place
where one of the public roads ran
through the hedge fence and they had
not attempted to close this road
opening in any way. All along the
fence on the outside they had cut
down the trees and underground for
a distance of some forty or fifty
yards making a tangled mass of OBJ
structions very troublesome to make
ones way through. When we struck
the edge of this tangled mass of trees,
logs and bushes the federal pickets
discovered us and began firing at us
pretty lively, and as soon as that took
place Galway sounded the double
quick for the skirmishers. 1t was a
pretty tough job to double-quick thru
the distractions but we made the best
time we could in the circumstances
1t SO happened that in deploying
was near one side of the public road
and Sam Hall was on the other side
When the double-quick was sounded
both Hall and myself had side-stepped
a little and got into the open road
and the result was that he and
reached the hedge before the balance
of our line could get there through
the tangle. Meantime our boys were
firing whenever they could see any
one to shoot at and our line of battle
was then plainly seen by the federal.
as it had reached the edge of the oper
where the tangle brush began; and Sc
it was that when Hall and I reached
the fence row thorough panic hae
taken hold of the federals and tn,
road was full of blue-coats with theil
guns slung on their backs making tn,
best time they could towards theil
encampment. By the time the rest O.
our line reached the fence Hall and
:. had put in three shots each into tn,
fleeing mass, and several other of thu
7 boys from each side the road go
there in time to get in shot or tw,
!, before they got out of range. Sever
!, dead and six or eight wounded so the,
could not travel were lying in tn