As I gave him another draught of water, I said, “I am not the enemy
I seem;” and pressing his hand, I walked quickly on.

He could not live long, but I hope his friends found him as they swept back over the ground the next day.

I soon found a splendid horse, and rode to General Beauregard for orders, and reached my own general about four o’clock P.M.  I found that the Federal troops had fallen back more than a mile, but were still fiercely contending for the ground.  The Rebels were confident of victory, and pressed them at every point.  I had scarce time to mark the condition of things however, until I was again dispatched to the commander-in-chief.  I had but fairly started, when I was struck on the right side by a piece of a shell almost spent, which yet came near ending my earthly career.  My first feeling after the shock was one of giddiness and blindness, then of partial recovery, then of deathly sickness.  I succeeded in getting off rather than falling from my horse, near the root of a tree, where I fainted and lay insensible for nearly an hour.  At length, I recovered so far as to be able to remount my horse, whose bridle I had somehow held all the time, though unconsciously.  I had ridden but a few rods when a musket-ball passed through the neck of this, my second horse, but, to my surprise, he did not fall immediately.  A tremor ran through his frame which I felt, convincing me that he was mortally wounded.  I dismounted, and stood watching him.  He soon sank on his knees, and then slowly lay down on his side.  As his life-blood ebbed away, his eye glazed, and making a last futile effort to rise, he fell back again and died with a groan almost like the last agony of a human being.  The pain of my side and my knee, which was never entirely free from pain, grew worse, and I saw that unless I found surgical attendance and rest, I would soon be exhausted.  In making my way to the general hospital which was established on the ground where the battle commenced, I met one of Forrest’s cavalry, wounded in the foot, and very weak from loss of blood.  With my handkerchief and a short stick, I made a simple tourniquet, which stopped the bleeding, when I accompanied him to the hospital.  After the dressing of my wound, which was an extensive bruise, about five inches in diameter, I took the cavalryman’s horse, and started back to my command.  When I had reached the camp of the 71st Ohio Volunteers, my strength failed, and after getting something to eat for myself and horse, and a bucket of water to bathe my side during the night, I tied my horse near the door of a tent, and crept in to try to sleep.  But the shells from the gunboats, which made night hideous, the groans of the wounded, and the pleadings of the dying, for a time prevented.  Weariness at length overcame me, and sleep followed more refreshing and sound than I hoped for under the circumstances.