One day, hearing an unusual skirmish fire some mile or more distant, we were ordered out to the front, and found the fight to be one over the possession of some hogs our boys had shot near the river to supplement our short rations. The Federal pickets came forward to dispute possession, and a spirited fight occurred.

The enemy landed more men to support pickets and our men supported ours, and the fight became general, involving all our brigade. We drove in their picket line and held the hogs, but they became then a small factor. Blood was up on both sides and the hog incident was forgotten. After driving in their Skirmish line under cover of their guns or gunboats we were halted and formed into a close skirmish line up and down the river road, lined in our front with heavy oak forest with thick undergrowth of gaulberry bushes and other thick growth. We were posted behind every convenient large oak tree for protection, as the fire from the concentrated enemy was severe, and the gunboats, in addition, were shelling us, but we got so close under their guns it was hard for them to reach us, but they soon put mortar shells upon us, dropping them all around us. The infantry charged us several times, but were repulsed. They had a skirmish line much stronger than ours, and with superior breach-loading rifles and ours muzzle-loading, were vastly in advantage over us. However, we held our line under a very trying fire. Here I was put to a severe test and shot a Yankee, the only one I ever knew I hit. These were the circumstances:

One interval of our line found no convenient tree for protection, so our captain (Jack Palmer) stationed a man some thirty yards forward of our line behind the trunk of a large white oak tree.

The enemy were not slow in learning of his disadvantage and crossed fired him so sharply that they ran him from the tree, and another man had to be sent there at once to fill the gap, which was done. When in a few moments he was run in, a third and tried old Legion man was then sent there, but fire became so hot that he, too, soon retired. The enemy seemed to become generally aware of the situation and concentrated their fire upon this point and coming up nearer to it, as it was so much in advance of our line they could do so with comparative safety, under cover, too, of the undergrowth, and our rear was an open field. It looked like our line would be broken, when our orderly sergeant (Mat Dannerly) ordered me to go forward and hold the tree and post.

I felt it unwarranted and told him I would not go. and demanded him to send back the men who belonged there. We were passing hot words when Captain Palmer came up and said, "Yes, Crosland, you are right; he cannot compel you to go, but it is important, and I ask you to go for my sake." Appealed to in this manner I could not refuse, and as all eyes were centered upon me and how I would bear myself, a new man, so to speak, among the old Legion men, I felt my opportunity to place myself upon , the same plane with the old men (who felt themselves superior in valor) had arrived, and forward I sprang under the applause of new and old men. I expected to be killed before I reached the tree, but I got there safely and found it the center target of all that section of the line. The cross firing was so hot and accurate I was sure each moment was my last. I tried firing upon them, too, at first, but soon gave it up as I exposed my elbows loading my muzzle Enfield rifle. Their balls were ripping the bark off the tree all around, from the ground ten feet up, and cutting off twigs and leaves all around my head, as it was a very low-branched tree. I cannot now look back and see how I escaped except through a special Providence. My comrades to rear, right and left shouted words of encouragement to me as they loaded and shot at the advancing line of enemy. Among these especially was P. M. Hamer on my left and P. M. John on my right, both of my mess. All yelled to me to stand close up to the tree. I tried to do so, but the roots were large and high, projecting from the tree, and I could not stand close behind without leaning forward, and this was a very straining posture; however, I maintained it with much fatigue, under stern necessity, for an hour, the balls fairly raining upon the tree and around me and shells dropping and exploding just in my rear. It was very demoralizing, but pride held me to my post. It was now getting late in the afternoon and the enemy made a last rally and dash.

I could hear their tramp just ahead of me, and hear them telling each other how to shoot to get me, hear all they said. Nature was about exhausted, standing in this position, and I had in this interval had all I ever did to pass in review before my mind. I was desperate and felt I had as well be killed one time as another and was about to change position and get a shot myself and risk consequences when their line became visible to our men. Philip M. Hamer called quickly and urgently for me to look out, that the enemy were upon me, and to fire. I sprang from behind the tree and not 20 steps from me I saw three bluecoats in a huddle with guns seemingly upon me, advancing through a thick clump of gaulberry bushes. As quick as lightning I fired upon them as by inspiration, feeling like the crucial time had come. I suppose the suddenness of my nervous fire took them by surprise. One of them fell yelling like a goat with his head hung in the fence. I sprang behind the tree, loading my rifle, looking each second to get the contents of the other two rifles at muzzle points. The suspense was awful, but short, for as the fellow fell yelling our whole line fell to cheering and applauding me. Comrades Hamer and John, especially exultant, calling to me that I had killed him, for all felt for me as I was such a small stripping sent to so trying a place. As soon as I got my gun loaded, which, you may be sure, was in an incredible short time, I sprang out again to die game, but instead the other two bluecoats had taken up the one I brought down and hustled him to the rear, and he was yelling at every step. I peered anxiously through every opening and watched the tops of every clump of bushes to detect any enemy passing through foot of same, but none came. This seemed to put a quietus on things, for in a few moments their line was withdrawn and we remained in line an hour longer, when our scouts reported all safe and quiet in front and we were ordered back into camp. This little episode fully established me in the confidence and esteem of the old men, and especially my officers. Captain Palmer was always very kind to me. This fight occurred very near an old jug manufactory called the "Old Pottery," and we soldiers called it the "Fight of the Old Pottery."

What it is termed in history I do not know, and perhaps no mention is made of these smaller engagements except in reports of officers of the army to their superiors in rank.
Soon after this we moved camp and I was detailed, with four others, on the usual picket duty, and was sent to Long Bridge, over the Chickahominy River, to warn of the approach of the enemy in that direction. We carried our usual two days' rations with us, which, being scant, we ate up in one day, expecting to fast the second day, but we were not relieved as promised at the expiration of two days and our fast was prolonged. At the end of the third day I was nearly famished. We tried to buy or beg of a poor woman near by enough to stay our stomachs, but she was nearly as bad off as we were. She said Sheridan had been through there twice, and had succeeded in leaving starvation behind him as was his boast. We dared not abandon our post, yet were in a serious condition. I found a plum thicket of green plums and some worn-eaten ripe ones. I ate some these and wandered off and found some red green blackberries and tried these, then drew my cartridge box strap tight to draw my stomach up to fit the rations, drank water to fill up, and continued tightening my belt. I lived this way, taking my turn on duty three hours out of each twelve, until the end of four days, when a courier came to call us in, saying that our camp had been moved and a fight been on hand and we were overlooked. But we were rejoiced at relief, as now we were nearly starved, and after a ten-mile ride found our camp. When I got there our mess had on the fire a huge camp kettle of rice, bacon, beef and Irish potatoes, the latter stolen out of a good woman's garden by T. L. Crosland while P. M. Hamer talked to her at the front gate. This hash was soon done and I fell to on it and ate it hot from the fire and thought it the grandest meal I ever sat down to.

The Battle of Deep Bottom.

Soon after this, on the (dates have escaped me), we were hurried out of camp one morning, after being in a skirmish fight all day, having ridden twenty miles and gotten into camp past midnight, into the battle of Deep Bottom. When we reached camp above I was so tired out I unsaddled my horse, fed him and fell at his feet with my head on the saddle, without food, into a deep sleep. In the night a heavy rain came up, but I was so worn out that it never waked me, and when the bugle rang out to saddle up and the orderly came around arousing the men I got up out of a hole of water, half my body being submerged in it. I felt I had been asleep only five minutes, but threw my saddle on my horse and put my coat on, mounted, and was on my way to the front in less time than I can write. It was long before day. We rode some five miles, were dismounted and sent to the front. We threw out a skirmish line in front and forming in battle line in rear followed up the skirmishers until we got to the river road; here we came up with our skirmish line, who were feeling the enemy lively. In our rear was a heavy growth of oak timber, and in our front a large field of corn about seven feet high, just in the bunch to tassel. It was very thick and the enemy were there in large numbers. We lay in a little ditch about a foot and a half deep, its bank being thrown up and a low plank fence put upon it. We had not been here long when the enemy charged us, and we poured our fire into them, loading and firing as fast as we could. They came within fifty yards of us, then fell back, and in a short time formed and came again, this time getting within thirty yards of us. The fire from their gunboats and field artillery was fearful, the shells hissing, shrieking and bursting all around us, tearing off whole tree tops and limbs in our rear; the grape and cannister making a fearful rattling and sickening thud, striking tree trunks, was very demoralizing. They were so thick it sounded like a handful of wheat thrown among dry leaves in regard to multitude of sounds, and like lightning and hail striking many times a minute. We repulsed this charge handsomely, but only to be confronted with a line of battle three deep very soon after, with ours only one deep.

This time they came within twenty steps of us and we could see the bluecoats well among the corn, now thinned by the fire. It looked like they would drive us out this time, they outnumbered us so much, but as fast as we fired we laid down in the ditch to reload, and up and fired again. I had fired my rifle so fast and often now that it became so hot I could hardly hold it in my hand. It got powder foul and as I tried to clean it a Yankee saw me and fired at me. The ball tore through the 12-inch plank at bottom of the fence and the spent ball hit me with a thud. I thought I was done for, but soon found I was o. k. The splinters of the plank hit D. C. John, who lay just beside me, in the back of the neck, and he thought his time had come, but finding his mistake we both got ready to fire about the same time, and putting our rifles through a crack of the fence we pulled upon the bluecoats. The fire getting rapid and no yelling going on, they supposed we were there in great numbers and were ready to mow them down when a little nearer, so they broke and ran. During this fire Captain Nickerson, afterward our major, was shot in the lower leg, and the pain was so intense that he yelled fearfully and jumped all over the road in our right, in an agony, holding his knee in both hands. It came near demoralizing our men. Just then the Twenty-fourth Virginia Cavalry, which belonged to our brigade and were posted to our right and held a ravine crossing the road, gave way, and the enemy, pressing on, outflanked our line. General Gary dashed up the road and ordered us to charge down the road and cut them off and retake the line, but the men on our right never moved, consequently we lay still. The general took out his pistols and threatened to shoot us if we did not move on. He ranted and fumed, but the men were dogged and remained firm, and we soon learned our right failed to move because they saw the utter futility of the action. They were largely out numbered, and we were then nearly surrounded, and it was sure death to get up and move down the road under such a terrific fire.

General Gary soon saw it, too, and ordered us to fall back a short distance, where he had ordered our led horses up. We mounted and at a brisk trot barely escaped from the cordon nearly around us. As we got beyond danger some one gave the alarm, "The Yankees were upon us", when the order came "Gallop, march." J. T. John's mare began to fall and stumbled twenty steps, when she fell upon him, hurting him right badly. As we rode along I saw a small piece of cornbread some one had dropped, and though the regiment had ridden over it, I sprang down quick as lightning and got it and went to eating it greedily, and thought it the sweetest bread I ever ate. As we passed out of this battle we passed Kershaw's brigade of infantry on our right, who had been in the fight, and as they retired from the temporary works the enemy crawled into them, and, strange to say, neither fired upon the other, though immediately upon each other, in speaking distance. This was a mystery to all of us. We lost a good sprinkling of men in this fight. Soon after this I was detailed to go on a very dangerous picket post near Chafins Farm, on the James River. We were carried about four miles from camp in the night through a dark piece of woods I had never been in before, and on a creek side in a deep hollow the reserve post was established where the reliefs slept while one was on duty. I was carried a mile further on, over a long bridge, through a deep valley and up a long, high hill and posted there on the edge of a large field of felled oak timber which was as dry as tinder. Several hundred yards off lay a Yankee gunboat where we could hear the bands playing and orders given. I was warned that every night for a week we had lost a man on this post from another regiment, and it was a post of great danger. The sergeant instructed me if advanced upon to gradually fall back, and if suddenly, to fire and fall back when all would come to me. He then left and went to reserve post. I was very lonesome and scared. Every motion of my horse, creaking of saddle and champing of bit sounded as loud as a gun to me. I was straining my ears all the time to detect the least noise in my front. After a time I heard a noise like a hog among the dry bushes in front of me. It stopped often, then inched on, gradually getting around me. I fell back twenty steps, when all was still for a time, then it worked again the same way, and finally I lost the noise. All of a sudden I heard it again nearly in my rear flanking me. I at once fell back again. When after a time it began again I was about to fire upon it when, greatly to my relief, I was relieved and another comrade put on. I warned him and went back to post. Away past midnight we heard a rifle shot and all hurried to the assistance. He reported the same facts I had given and fired upon it. We remained with him till day, when we were relieved by another squad from the regiment, and that night a man was taken off. It was the worst and most ticklish picket duty I ever did. I thought that night of all I ever did in my life, expecting death or capture. I could hear my own heart beating in the stillness of the night.