I had made up my mind to die--felt glorious.
We pressed forward until I heard the terrific roar of battle open on our
right. Cleburne's division was charging their works. I passed on until
I got to their works, and got over on their (the Yankees') side. But in
fifty yards of where I was the scene was lit up by fires that seemed like
hell itself. It appeared to be but one line of streaming fire. Our
troops were upon one side of the breastworks, and the Federals on the
other. I ran up on the line of works, where our men were engaged.
Dead soldiers filled the entrenchments. The firing was kept up until
after midnight, and gradually died out. We passed the night where we
were. But when the morrow's sun began to light up the eastern sky with
its rosy hues, and we looked over the battlefield, O, my God! what did we
see! It was a grand holocaust of death. Death had held high carnival
there that night. The dead were piled the one on the other all over
the ground. I never was so horrified and appalled in my life. Horses,
like men, had died game on the gory breastworks. General Adams' horse
had his fore feet on one side of the works and his hind feet on the other,
dead. The general seems to have been caught so that he was held to the
horse's back, sitting almost as if living, riddled, and mangled, and torn
with balls.
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