One of the first struck me between my ear and head, but was turned out by a double gold cord around my hat, cutting off a small piece of my ear, and while falling I was shot through both shoulders, but fell in a deep water furrow, which saved me from being riddled.
I had already been shot in the throat.
Later they threw out a line of skirmishers: these advanced to where I lay—a sandy haired fellow leveled his gun at me and ordered me up. I told him I was wounded and perhaps bleeding to death.
He gazed at me an instant and soliloquized: ‘What a likely fellow!
What a pity!
What a pity!’
and moved on a few yards, when a shot from the woods fatally wounded him. He came staggering back, crying, ‘
Johnny Reb, please kill me’—fell a few yards off crying out with pain—got up and staggered a few yards further—fell and was hushed in death.
The skirmish line then retired into the trenches until after dark, when they covered the ground and commenced removing the wounded.
