Bonnie --

Thanks for the kind and encouraging words! I really do enjoy posting for people like you who are intensely interested and appreciative of detailed descriptions.

Here are a few quotes about the 5th North Carolina at Williamsburg. It had been raining, so that's what D. H. Hill means when he describes the ground over which the men had to pass as "heavy":

Confederate Maj.Gen. Daniel H. Hill wrote:

"I regretted that our troops had gone into the open field, where the ground was so heavy that they could march with difficulty, and where they were exposed for half a mile to the full sweep of the Yankee artillery; but it was now too late to change the order of things, and there was some hope of success from a direct attack, if made rapidly. I therefore gave a reluctant consent to Colonel McRae, urging him to move forward briskly."

"The Yankees were now rapidly falling back to an abandoned earthwork on the edge of the woods, several hundred yards from the earthwork from which General Early had ordered a regiment to his support. The Twenty-fourth Virginia and Fifth North Carolina were pressing on vigorously through the heavy ground, exposed to a most murderous fire, but not halting or faltering for a moment."

"...the attack of the Twenty-fourth Virginia and Fifth North Carolina was made without their co-operation and ended in a bloody repulse....Colonel McRae lost his lieutenant-colonel, John C. Badham, a gallant and accomplished officer, and one-half of his men."

"The courage exhibited by the Fifth North Carolina and Twenty-fourth Virginia made, too, a wonderful impression upon the Yankees, and doubtless much of the caution exhibited in their subsequent movements was due to the terror inspired by the heroism of those noble regiments. History has no example of a more daring charge."

O.R., ser. I, XI/1, 603-604.

Brig.Gen. Jubal A. Early wrote:

"[I]...was compelled to retire from the field just as the Fifth North Carolina Regiment, under the lead of its gallant colonel, made its charge upon the enemy's artillery and infantry, but its conduct has been reported to me by impartial witnesses. This regiment, in conjunction with the Twenty-fourth Virginia Regiment, made an attack upon the vastly-superior forces of the enemy, which for its gallantry is unsurpassed in the annals of warfare. Their conduct was such as to extort from the enemy himself the highest praise...."

O.R., ser. I, XI/1, 608.

Union Maj.Gen. Winfield Scott Hancock wrote:

"The enemy's assault was of the most determined character. No troops could have made a more desperate or resolute charge. The Fifth North Carolina was annihilated. Nearly all of its superior officers were left dead or wounded on the field. The Twenty-fourth Virginia suffered greatly in superior officers and men. The battle-flag of one of the enemy's regiments was captured by the Fifth Wisconsin Volunteers, and sent by me as a trophy to General Smith. For 600 yards in front of our line the whole field was strewn with the enemy's dead and wounded."

O.R., ser. I, XI/1, 540.