I mean from twenty to one hundred each. All that was
necessary was to load and shoot. In fact, I will ever think that the
reason they did not capture our works was the impossibility of their
living men passing over the bodies of their dead. The ground was piled
up with one solid mass of dead and wounded Yankees. I learned afterwards
from the burying squad that in some places they were piled up like cord
wood, twelve deep.
After they were time and time again beaten back, they at last were
enabled to fortify a line under the crest of the hill, only thirty yards
from us, and they immediately commenced to excavate the earth with the
purpose of blowing up our line.
We remained here three days after the battle. In the meantime the woods
had taken fire, and during the nights and days of all that time continued
to burn, and at all times, every hour of day and night, you could hear
the shrieks and screams of the poor fellows who were left on the field,
and a stench, so sickening as to nauseate the whole of both armies,
arose from the decaying bodies of the dead left lying on the field.
On the third morning the Yankees raised a white flag, asked an armistice
to bury their dead, not for any respect either army had for the dead,
but to get rid of the sickening stench.
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