At the battle of Drewry's Bluff, May 16th, according to General Beauregard's report, ‘Hagood and Bushrod Johnson were thrown forward and found a heavy force of the enemy occupying a salient of the outer line of works. . . . Hagood with great vigor and dash drove the enemy from the outer lines in his front, capturing a number of prisoners, and in conjunction with Johnson, five pieces of artillery. He then took position in the works.’ The casualties of the brigade were 433 out of 2,235. Captain Brooks, of the Seventh, received three severe wounds. Fifty-seven bullet marks were found upon the flag of the Seventh battalion after the fight, and in one of its companies 19 were killed and 46 wounded. It was by such heroic fighting that Petersburg and Richmond were held in May, 1864.
Brig.-Gen. Stephen Elliott reported a severe fight on June 2d, in which the Seventeenth and Twenty-second South Carolina were engaged, and the latter regiment lost its colonel, O. M. Dantzler, who fell mortally wounded while leading a charge.
Grant having transferred his army south of the James, Bratton's brigade was sent across to Beauregard's line near the Howlett house, on June 16th. Taking position on the right, they saw next morning that the enemy was still in partial possession of part of Beauregard's line. ‘About the middle of the day the division (Field's) made a sort of spontaneous charge,’ as Bratton put it, ‘in which my skirmish line participated, and recovered the line.’ Next morning, relieved by Pickett, Bratton moved to the Petersburg line beyond the Appomattox, taking position on the right of where the mine was sprung later. Here for several days, during the first
