did not order my skirmishers to lie down, but as soon as the regiment was abreast of me I advanced and drove the enemy again across the creek.  On hearing firing on the west of the hill, I closed up my skirmishers and advanced south towards the crest of the hill.  I found a regiment of Union sharpshooters lying behind a breastwork of rails and firing on the Third, which was within forty yards of them.  As soon as the enemy saw us on their flank, they threw up their hands and surrendered.  The Third had lost forty men up to this time.”

Colonel Wallace tells also of how a Federal soldier, who had surrendered, was in the act of shooting him, but was prevented from doing so by the muzzle of a rifle being thrust in his face by a member of Company E.W.W.  Riser, afterwards Sheriff of Newberry County.  Colonel Nance was much gratified at the able assistance rendered him by Colonel Wallace, and made special and favorable mention of him in his report.

The Second, Seventh, Eighth, and Third Battalion swept across the plain like a hurricane, driving everything before them right in the teeth of the deadly fire of Fort Sanders, but the Third and Fifteenth Regiments were unusually unfortunate in their positions, owing to the strength of the works in their front.  The Fifteenth got, in some way, hedged in between the road and river, and could make little progress in the face of the many obstacles that confronted them.  Their young commander, Major William Gist, son of ex-Governor Gist, becoming somewhat nettled at the progress his troops were making, threw aside all prudence and care, recklessly dashed in front of his column, determined to ride at its head in the assault that was coming, but fell dead at the very moment of victory.  How many hundreds, nay thousands, of brave and useful officers and men of the South wantonly threw away their lives in the attempt to rouse their companions to extra exertions and greater deeds of valor.

The Third fought for a few moments almost muzzle to muzzle, with nothing but a few rails, hastily piled, between assailants and the assailed.  At this juncture another gallant act was performed by Captain Winthrop, of Alexander’s Battery.  Sitting on his horse in our rear, watching the battle as it ebbed and flowed, and seeing the deadly throes in which the Third was writhing, only a few feet separating them from the enemy, by some sudden impulse or emotion put spurs to his horse and dashed headlong through our ranks, over the breastworks, and fell desperately wounded in the ranks of the Federals, just as their lines gave way or surrendered.  This was only one of the many heroic and nerve-straining acts witnessed by the soldiers that followed the flag of Kershaw, McLaws, and Longstreet.

Colonel Rice, of the Battalion, was so seriously wounded that he never returned to active duty in the field.  Major Miller, in a former battle, had been permanently disabled, but no other field promotions were ever made, so the gallant little Battalion was commanded in future by senior Captains.