Our loss was heavy, both in officers and men.  The brave, chivalric Cobb, of Georgia, had fallen.  Of the Third South Carolina, Colonel Nance, Lieutenant Colonel Rutherford, and Major Maffett had all been severely wounded in the early part of the engagement.  Captain Hance, while commanding, fell pierced through the heart.  Then the next in command, Captain Summer, met a similar fate; then Captain Foster.  Captain Nance, the junior Captain in the regiment, retained the command during the continuance of the fight, although painfully wounded.  The dead of the Third Regiment lay in heaps, like hogs in a slaughter pen.  The position of the Second Regiment gave it great advantage over the advancing column.  From a piazza in rear of the sunken road, Colonel Kennedy posted himself, getting a better view, and to better direct the firing Lieutenant Colonel William Wallace remained with the men in the road, and as the column of assault reached the proper range, he ordered a telling fire on the enemy’s flank.  Men in the road would load the guns for those near the wall, thus keeping up a continual fire, and as the enemy scattered over the plain in their retreat, then was the opportunity for the Second and Third, from their elevated positions and better view, to give them such deadly parting salutes.  The smoke in front of the stone wall became so dense that the troops behind it could only fire at the flashing of the enemy’s guns.  From the Third’s position, it was more dangerous for its wounded to leave the field than remain on the battle line, the broad, level plateau in rear almost making it suicidal to raise even as high as a stooping posture.

From the constant, steady, and uninterrupted roll of musketry far to the right, we knew Jackson was engaged in a mighty struggle.  From the early morning’s opening the noise of his battle had been gradually bearing to the rear.  He was being driven from position to position, and was meeting with defeat and possibly disaster.  From the direction of his fire our situation was anything but assuring.

General Meade, of the Federal Army, had made the first morning attack upon the Light Brigade, under A.P.  Hill, throwing that column in confusion and driving it back upon the second line.  These troops were not expecting the advance, and some had their guns stacked.  The heavy fog obscured the Federal lines until they were almost within pistol shot.  When it was discovered that an enemy was in their front (in fact some thought them their friends), in this confusion of troops a retreat was ordered to the second line.  In this surprise and disorder South Carolina lost one of her most gifted sons, and the South a brave and accomplished officer, Brigadier General Maxey Gregg.