14 Soulln'i'ii IIi*t<irn-<tl Nor/V/// 1'npc.rs.
P. M., to see that General Johnson would have the gap filled up. He reported to Johnson and warned him of the disaster likely to occur before sunrise the next morning. He professed to have issued the proper orders, but they were not executed, and the next morn- ing Johnson's Brigade gave way, the 26th was flanked on the right, and Colonel P. R. Page and Captain Geo. D. Wise fell in a few min- utes of each other; near by fell Major Patrick H. Fitzhugh, crossing the bayonets of the enemy with his sword; there too fell the gallant flagbearer of the 46th, the indomitable hero, Louis Rogers, and near him Otho West, both of Accomack; there too fell the brave Major J. C. Hill, of the 46th, whilst bearing up the flag, and Rogers the flag- bearer, and there too fell Lieutenant-Colonel Peyton Wise,* and a large member of others killed and wounded. Lieutenant-Colonel Wise and Major Hill survive, but Page lies at Blandsford Cemetery, Captain Wise, our brigade inspector, at Hollywood, and the body of Fitzhugh fell into the hands of the enemy. Poor fellow! he had heard his son was butchered at Battery No. 5 by the colored troops, after his surrender; the last that I saw of him he was in tears swear- ing the Hannibal's oath that he would at every hazard avenge his son's death. The story was false, his son was captured only, and yet survives. After this commenced the life of the trenches and scenes like that of the Crater. Colonel Goode succeeded Page in the command of the brigade, and when the mine was sprung Gracie's Brigade was on the left and ours on the right of it. As sudden as the explosion the enemy rushed through the gap made by its terrific blast and a portion of them got to our inner line. Gracie's Brigade and ours firing obliquely right and left continuously for six hours, without relief, kept the enemy down where they lodged and kept them back in front until Mahone's Brigade was brought six miles from the right to charge the enemy in the trenches as they did most triumphantly. Here, too, havoc was made among the best and bravest of our brigade. I have not time or space to tell of our picket losses and of the sufferings of the trenches. Early in March, 1865, we were ordered to Lee's extreme right at Hatcher's Run. Then commenced the preliminaries of the retreat, strong guards near
- Colonel, subsequently known as General Peyton Wise, from a post-bellum
commission in the State Line, became a prominent and useful citizen of Rich- mond. He was an accomplished gentleman, as frank and warm-hearted as he was courageous, and possessed powers of oratory of a high order. He died March 2gth, 1897, in his fifty-eighth year, honored and widely beloved.
