2021-10 Raynors HCA Live
This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 10/15/2021
The recollection is neatly presented on 19 pages written in pencil. He begins, "There came a day when the cruel realities came home ... that my father had been made a prisoner - it could scarcely have been greater pain to have stood on the smoking battlefield and had my heart pierced by a shot ... throwing myself into my beloved black Mammy's arms, I sobbed out my grief. ... I scarcely passed the large map in the hall ... lifted up by a relative .. put my finger on a little spot on Lake Michigan ... Johnson's Island, where the Yankees had taken my Papa ..." Then the writer reviews the steps which brought the war, Lincoln, Sumter, South Carolina seccession, Ellsworth's shooting ... He continues, "at Big Bethel the Confederate position in command of Col. D.H. Hill was attacked by General Pierce. The detail of the first battle, I give in his (D.H. Hill)own words, "in obedience to orders from the colonel commanding, I marched on the 6th instant, with my regiment and four pieces of Maj. Randolph's battery, from Yorktown, on the Hampton road, to Bethel Church, nine miles from Hampton. ... Lieut.-Col. Lee, of my regiment, in its plan and construction. Our position had the inherent defect of being commanded by an immense field immediately in front of it, upon which the masses of the enemy might be readily deployed. Presuming that an attempt would be made to carry the bridge across the stream, battery was made for its especial protection, and Maj. Randolph placed his guns so as to sweep all the approaches to it. .... After a wary march they encountered, dispersed, and chased the wretches over the New Market Bridge--this being the second race on the same day over the New Market course, in both of which the Yankees reached the goal first. Maj. Lane brought in one prisoner. Reliable citizens reported that two cart loads and one buggy load of wounded, were taken into Hampton. We had not a single man killed or wounded. Col. Magruder came up that evening assumed command. ... Just at 9 o'clock a.m. The heavy columns of the enemy were seen approaching rapidly and in good order, but when Randolph opened upon them at 9.15 their organization was completely broken up. The enemy promptly replied with his artillery, firing briskly but wildly. He made an attempt at deployment on our right of the road, under cover of some houses and a paling. He was, however, promptly driven back by our artillery, a Virginia company--the Life Guards--and Companies B and G of my regiment. ... A force estimated at one thousand five hundred was now attempting to outflank us and get in the rear of Lieut.-Col. Stuart's small command. He was this critical moment I directed Lieut.-Col. Lee to call Capt. Bridgers out of the swamp, and ordered him to reoccupy the nearest advanced work, and I ordered Capt. Ross, Company C, First Regiment North Carolina Volunteers, to the support of Lieut.-Col. Stuart. ... The fight at the angle lasted but twenty minutes. It completely discouraged the enemy, and he made no further effort at assault. The house in front, which had several as a hiding place for the enemy, was now fired by a shell from a howitzer, and the outhouses and palings were soon in a blaze. As all shelter was now taken from him, the enemy called in his troops, and started back for Hampton. As he had left sharpshooters behind him in the woods on our left, the dragoons could not advance until Capt. Hoke, of Company K, First North Carolina Volunteers, that thoroughly explored them. As soon as he gave the assurance of the road being clear, Capt. Douthatt, with some one hundred dragoons, in compliance wit Col. Magruder's orders, pursued. The enemy in his haste threw away hundreds of canteens, haversacks, overcoats, &c.; even the dead were thrown out of the wagons. ... The confederates had in all about one thousand two hundred men in the action. The enemy had the regiments of Col. Duryea (zouaves), Col. Carr, Col. Allen, Col. Bendix, and Col. Wardrop (Massachusetts), from Old Point Comfort, and five companies of Phelps; regiment from Newport New. We had never more than three hundred actively engaged at any one time. The Confederate loss was eleven wounded; of these, one mortally. The enemy must have lost some three hundred. D. H. HILL, Col. First Regiment North Carolina Volunteers."
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