One other story which concerns Capt. John B. Rains of Company "A", 11th Alabama:

******************* TEARS FOR AN ENEMY *********************

A Confederate veteran, N. B. Hogan of Springfield, Missouri, recalls a touching incident of war:

"It was on Sunday, May 3, 1863, while Lee at Chancellorsville was hurling his heroic and victorious battalions against the dense masses of Hooker, that Sedgewick, with the design of falling upon Lee's rear, crossed the Rappahannock at Fredericksburg with his magnificent Sixth Corps, 20,000 strong, and marched hurriedly along the Fredericksburg and Orange Court House plank road, following the retreating brigade of Alabamians, under command of Gen. C. M. Wilcox, who had attended the military school at West Point with General Sedgewick."

"I now come to a touching incident in this battle: As the last assaulting column of blue approached, Capt. John B. Rains, commander of our company (A), was patting me on the shoulder and repeatedly saying, as I loaded my Springfield rifle as rapidly as possible, "Give 'em hell, Needham; give 'em hell!" (Needham is my first name). Suddenly an officer, mounted on a fine, swift horse, came at a racing run along the plank road from the Yankee lines, and it seemed that I was the first one to notice him, and I called to the boys to "shoot the man on the horse," at the same time firing obliquely toward him. The gallant fellow reeled and fell a corpse on the hard plank of the road. His horse turned and ran to the rear. After the battle was over, and we returned to the bloody ground where we made the stand, Captain Rains, I and others went to where the dead officer lay, whom Captain Rains recognized as a schoolmate of his at the Philadelphia Law School. The gallant Captain burst into tears over the fate of his old- time friend. He was Colonel of a Pennsylvania regiment, but I have forgotten his name. Several of the boys fired at the same time, so none of us knew who sent the fatal ball, and I am glad of it."

---Excerpt from Confederate Veteran Magazine.