our boys got happy. Colonel Field told us he had orders to hold it until every man was killed, and never to surrender the house. It was a forlorn hope.
We felt we were "gone fawn skins," sure enough. At every discharge of our guns, we would hear a Yankee squall. The boys raised a tune—
"I'se gwine to jine the Rebel band,
A fighting for my home"—
as they loaded and shot their guns. Then the tune of—
"Cheer, boys, cheer, we are marching on to battle!
Cheer, boys, cheer, for our sweethearts and our wives!
Cheer, boys, cheer, we'll nobly do our duty,
And give to the South our hearts, our arms, our lives.
Our cartridges were almost gone, and Lieutenant Joe Carney, Joe Sewell, and Billy Carr volunteered to go and bring a box of one thousand cartridges. They got out of the back window, and through that hail of iron and lead, made their way back with the box of cartridges. Our ammunition being renewed, the fight raged on, Captain Joe P. Lee touched me on the shoulder, and said, "Sam, please let me have your gun for one shot." He raised it to his shoulder and pulled down on a fine-dressed cavalry officer, and I saw that Yankee tumble. He handed it back to me to reload. About twelve o'clock, midnight, the Hundred and Fifty-fourth Tennessee, commanded by Colonel McGevney, came to our relief.
The firing had ceased, and we abandoned the octagon house. Our dead and wounded—there were thirty of them—were in strange contrast with the furniture of the house. Fine chairs, sofas, settees, pianos, and Brussels carpeting, being made the death-bed of brave and noble boys, all saturated with blood. Fine lace and damask curtains, all blackened by the smoke of battle. Fine bureaus and looking-glasses and furniture being riddled by the rude missiles of war. Beautiful pictures in gilt frames, and a library of valuable books, all shot and torn by musket and cannon balls. Such is war.
