About two o’clock our lines were ordered forward, and we made our way through the tangled morass, in direction of our skirmish line.  Here one of the bravest men in our regiment was killed, private John Davis, of the “Quitman Rifles.”  He was reckless beyond all reason.  He loved danger for danger’s sake.  Stepping behind a tree to load (he was on skirmish line) he would pass out from this cover in plain view, take deliberate aim, and fire.  Again and again he was entreated and urged by his comrades to shield himself, but in vain.  A bullet from the enemy’s sharpshooters killed him instantly.

A singular and touching incident of this family is here recorded.  Davis had an only brother, who was equally as brave as John and younger, James, the two being the only children of an aged but wealthy couple, of Newberry County.  After the death of John, his mother exerted herself and hired a substitute for her baby boy, and came on in a week after the battle for the body of her oldest son and to take James home with her, as the only hope and solace of the declining years of this aged father and mother.  Much against his will and wishes, but by mother’s entreaties and friends’ solicitations, the young man consented to accompany his mother home.  But fate seemed to follow them here and play them false, for in less than two weeks this brave, bright, and promising boy lay dead from a malignant disease.

As our brigade was moving through the thicket in the interval between our main line and the skirmishers, and under a heavy fire, we came upon a lone stranger sitting quietly upon a log.  At first he was thought an enemy, who in the denseness of the undergrowth had passed our lines on a tour of observation.  He was closely questioned, and it turned out to be Rev. Boushell, a methodist minister belonging to one of McGowan’s South Carolina regiments, who became lost from his command in the great flank movement of Jackson (McGowan’s Brigade belonged to Jackson’s Corps), and said he came down “to see how the battle was going and to lend aid and comfort to any wounded soldier should he chance to find one in need of his services.”

The batteries in our front were now raking the matted brush all around and overhead, and their infantry soon became aware of our presence, and they, too, began pouring volleys into our advancing column.  The ranks became confused, for in this wilderness we could not see twenty paces in front.  Still we moved forward with such order as was under the conditions permissible.  When near the turn-pike road General Kershaw gave the command to “charge.”  The Fifteenth raised the yell; then the Third dashed forward; the Seventh was somewhat late on account of the almost impassable condition of the ground, but still it and the Third Battalion, with the Second on the left, made a mad rush for the public road, and entered it soon after the Fifteenth and Third.  A perfect sea of fire was in our faces from the many cannon parked around the Chancellor House and graping