"Do you think we can do it?" And he said we would have to; that if they passed the battery there was nothing else to stop them but our company, and if we did not do it they would destroy the railroad bridge. I laid down beside my old chum, Fely Brooks, and he whispered to me: "Charlie, we are in a tight place." And I answered, yes, but we would have to stand it, and I thought the artillery boys could whip them. About ten or fifteen minutes after I got there one of the boats poked her nose out past the point of timber, but not until she came out in full view did the artillery open on her, and either at the first or second shot the splinters flew from her, and those Charleston boys behind those guns gave a big yell, and for one who was not as scared as I was then, for fifteen or twenty minutes there was as pretty a little artillery duel as one ever saw. Every time the splinters flew from the boat Walter's boys yelled (we did not want them to know we were there, so we kept quiet). At the end of that time the battery had whipped them completely, they fell back behind the timber, one of the boats being badly crippled and smoking terribly. They retreated down the river and abandoned her at the piling at Willtown, where next day Lieutenant Bauskett, Fely Brooks, myself, Uly Brooks (I think) and another man, named Bill Busbee, went on the wreck, but the fellows from the other side of the river at Willtown and elsewhere had already been there and despoiled her of everything that the Yanks had left except a few canister shot.

In writing this reminiscence I have had two objects in view: one was to try to do justice to that gallant company, Captain George H. Walters's battery of the Washington Artillery, who, in my opinion, have been badly treated in the only report I have ever seen of this affair, that of Major Johnson in his work, "The Defence of Charleston Harbor," in which he says nothing at all of the brave fight they made which saved the railroad bridge. You were there, as well as your brother, Fely, and myself, and you know that there was nothing to stop the Yankee, gunboats except that battery of Captain Walters's. After they passed Willtown they had no fort, no breastwork of any kind, and they planted their four little guns in the shallow trench made for the horse hedge, and they fought them so effectively that they ruined one boat and caused the other to get away behind that timber as fast as she could. Indeed, I heard afterwards that the

second boat was also damaged, but I do not know whether this report was true or not. But we and all the members of Company "B" do know that Walters's battery saved that bridge and no other command did it.

I have always believed that Fely Brooks's ride back to the company with the report that he made caused Lieutenant Bauskett to send for the Washington Artillery to come in time and thereby enabled them to select the position that was best for them to fight from. It is hard for me to write about Fely Brooks, even at this late day, for when I, after serving for thirteen months in the Second Texas mounted riflemen, out on the Western frontier of that State, was discharged, being only seventeen, returned to South Carolina and reënlisted in Company "B," Sixth South Carolina Cavalry, Fely Brooks was one of the first to welcome me into that company, and from that day until his death, June 12, 1864, at the battle of Trevillion Station, Virginia, I ever found him to be as brave and true a soldier, as gallant a gentleman, as close a friend and as devoted to the cause of our loved Southland as any man that ever wore the gray. I am glad that you have dedicated your book to his memory, and I am ready at any time to do all I can to aid you in these reminiscences, and if I err in any of my recollections, remember that it is not intentional, but the fault of a memory that was in my young days good, but it is not now, at sixty-two, as good as it was at eighteen.

I had the further desire to let the people who have come since that day, and those who will come after us, know that whilst old Company "B," being cavalry, did not and could not do much towards stopping those gunboats, they did all they could, and were ready to do more if they had been called upon, and I am inclined to the opinion that if those brave boys of Walters's had not whipped the gunboats when they did, there would not have been many of Company "B" left to tell the tale, for a box hedge would have been rather a slender protection from grape shot and canister at not more than seventy-five yards distance. Always your old comrade,

CHAS. MONTAGUE.

P. S.-Whilst writing reminiscences one has occurred to me, in which I had no part, but tell it as it was told to me, and is one

Captain John Foster deserved and was offered promotion by Hampton and Butler, but declined to leave his company.

that I think Colonel Brooks, now in his old age, will enjoy, hence I tell it.

In 1863, whilst we were encamped at Jacksonborough, there were two boys, brothers, in the company, named Mitt and Milledge Scott, who came from some part of the backwoods of Edgefield, and had never been anywhere else. About all that they knew was to plough straight furrows and to shoot straight. In their conversation they used, to a good extent, the dialect of their Scotch ancestors, saying "her" when they should say "I," etc. One day whilst on the island at the reserve station, these boys got permission to go to Bennett's Point to get oysters. After they had gone, Uly Brooks, a mischievous seventeen-year-old boy in the company, Jim Kimball and three others, knowing that it would be some time in the night before the Scotts could get back, thought it would be a good joke to waylay them and capture at least the oysters, if not the boys themselves. So they went down the road towards the Point, about half way, and concealed themselves by the side of the road in an old field grown up with broomstraw, and awaited the coming of the boys. After dark awhile the two Scotts came along talking to themselves, each with a sack of oysters in the saddle in front of him; just as they got abreast of the ambuscade Uly and the rest sprang up and shouted: "Surrender, you Rebels, surrender," and fired off their guns; the sacks of oysters fell to the ground, the horses sprang off, but only for a few yards, when the Scotts checked them and, unslinging their guns, wheeled upon the jokers. One of them shouted to his brother, "Here, Mitt, you hold her creetur," and down from his horse he sprang, and aiming his carbine at the man nearest to him, was about to fire, when the jokers yelled: "Don't shoot, Milledge, don't shoot, we are friends, we are only playing a joke.” Mitt Scott said, "We'ens took youens for Yankees." Some of the others say that Uly Brooks and Kimball, as they cried out, would jump about four feet in the air and yell: "Don't shoot, Milledge, don't shoot." Well, the result was that the jokers had to assist in picking up the oysters and act as an escort back to the camp for the Scotts, upon whom no more practical jokes were played. The above is absolutely true.

THE STORY OF ONE OF BUTLER'S SCOUTS IN FORT DELAWARE

J. H. Brent, of Cobbs's Legion, Georgia; Carroll, of Jeff Davis's Legion, and myself (John H. Pierce), were captured on the afternoon of the 3d day of February, 1864, by Captain McDowell, Seventh Pennsylvania Cavalry, in Fauquier County, Virginia. We had left our horses back with the main body of scouts under the command of Shadbourne, and started across the country, having left the public roads, hoping to dodge Yankee scouting parties intending to go over into the Yankee lines and dine with a family by the name of Rector, and then make our way back by a Yankee picket post, capture them and their horses and get out of the Yankee lines before they could give chase. We had gotten about a half mile within the Yankee lines, and just as we were about to cross a public road we saw a column of Yankee cavalry come into view, and as we saw them we made for a piece of timber land. They gave chase and we stopped just as we reached the skirts of the timber and waited their coming within gunshot-two of us being armed with double-barreled shotguns— and fired, wounding several of their horses.

We were in hopes that they would think that we had been sent out as a decoy, but they would not take the bluff, and came charging upon us and surrounded the woods. We made for cover, hoping to be able to secrete ourselves and avoid capture. J. H. Brent ran up into an old ravine and was the first captured. Carroll and myself ran on through the timber, and ran out into the old field, covered with broom sage and briers, and tried to evade the Yankees. In the meantime Captain McDowell had deployed his men about twenty feet apart, and was riding abreast over the field. Having already gone through the piece of woodland as the Yankees came riding through the field, they rode over us without seeing us. They had gone about one hundred yards beyond us, when their commanding officer halted his men and ordered them to give up the search, as we had escaped. Upon their return one of the Yankee cavalrymen spied us in the grass and ordered us to surrender. As we rose up out of the straw and briers we were met with a volley of hisses and curses. We drew our pistols, cocked them, and was about to fire into the Yankees when Captain McDowell rode up and ordered his men to attention. They paid