we repulsed.  Again the same points were assailed, with a like result.  Then the attack was made on our left, and although the Seventh Regiment did its whole duty, gradually our left was seen to give way.  This emboldened the enemy to press our right and center again, but they were firm.  It was manifest now that the enemy would soon be in our rear, and as the sun was sinking to rest in the West, we made a bold dash to cross the river in our rear, bringing down upon us the enemy’s artillery fire of shot and shell, as well as musketry.  It looked hard to tell which way across the river was best—­whether by way of the bridge, or to wade across.  It was said our Lieutenant Colonel, who was on foot when reaching the opposite bank, and finding his boots full of water, said to a soldier:  “Tom, give me your hand.”  “No, no, Major,” was the reply; “this is no time for giving hands.”  The ascent of the long bill on the South side was made under the heavy fire of the enemy.  When at its height, a stuttering soldier proposed to a comrade to lay down and let him get behind him.  Of course the proposition was declined without thanks.  When we reformed at the top of the hill, there was quite a fund of jokes told.  Amongst others, the one last stated, Tom Paysinger said:  “Nels., if I had been there, I would have killed myself laughing.”  Whereupon, the stutterer said:  “T-T-Tom Paysinger, I saw a heap of men down there, but not one that laughed.”

War has its humorous as well as its serious side, and many a joke was cracked in battle, or if not mentioned then, the joke was told soon afterwards.  It is recalled just here that in this battle an officer, who had escaped being wounded up to that time, was painfully wounded.  When being borne on the way to the rear on a stretcher, he was heard to exclaim:  “Oh! that I had been a good man.  Oh! that I had listened to my mother.”  When he returned to the army, many a laugh was had at his expense when these expressions would be reported.  But the officer got even with one of his tormentors, who was one of the bearers of the litter upon which the officer was borne away, for while this young man was at his best in imitating the words and tone of the wounded man, he was suddenly arrested by the words:  “Yes, I remember when a shell burst pretty close you forgot me, and dropped your end of the litter.”  The laugh was turned.  All this, however, was in perfect good humor.

It has been shown how Kershaw’s South Carolina Brigade closed the breach in Lee’s Army on the 6th of May, and turned disaster into a glorious victory, and as the 12th of May, at “Bloody Angle,” near Spottsylvania Court house, will go down in history as one among the most memorable battles of all time, I wish to show how another gallant South Carolina Brigade (McGowan’s) withstood the shock of the greater portion of Grant’s Army, and saved Lee’s Army from disaster during the greater part of one day.  This account is also taken from Captain Caldwell’s “History of McGowan’s Brigade.”  Being an active participant, he is well qualified to give a truthful version, and I give in his own language his graphic description of the battle of the “Bloody Angle.”