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somewhere that the fire was th;it technically known as the "fire by till- of companies," which, supposing tin- division to have consisted of ten companies in two ranks, and allowing l"<>r reserves, would have 11 UK >rr than loo guns at every second of time. This fire of musketry was deafening. The great guns of the artillery, and all the confused noises of battle were completely drowned in the one continuous roar of the deadly fire of small arms. Ik-fore it, the Rifles, caught in the moment of executing a most difficult manoeuvre, melted away; more than half of the regiment falling in a few mo- ments in this its baptismal fire.
The fire was scarcely less fatal to the ist and I2th. Of the ist Lieutenant-Colonel A. M. Smith, Captain C. L. Boag, Lieutenants Grimke Rhett, Robert W. Rhett and A. J. Ashley were killed or mortally wounded. Lieutenants B. M. Blease, Josiah Cox, John G. Barnwell and E. D. Brailsford were also wounded, and under the fire the whole color guard went down. The loss of the ist in this battle was 145, almost all of whom fell at this time.
As in all such incidents of intense excitement and* violent and tragic scenes, the accounts of those who took part in this differ, and these differences increase as our memories fail as the years go by. But all agree that Color Sergeant Taylor "Jimmy Taylor," as we all affectionately called him fell at once under the fire, which was no doubt in a great measure directed to our great blue flag with the palmetto upon it, as it emerged from the woods. His blood was still to be seen upon its folds when, in 1889, my brother surviving officers and myself presented it to the State, with the request that it should always be kept at the capitol.
There are two accounts as to who took up the colors from under Taylor's body. One statement is that Colonel D. H. Hamilton, commanding the regiment, did so, and that he handed them to Cor- poral Shubrick Hayne, the color corporal for Company L. The other account asserts that Hayne himself took them up. How- ever this may be, certain it is that Hayne bore them aloft until he fell, mortally wounded, when it seems equally certain that Alfred Pinckney, of Company L, seized them and was immediately killed with them in his hands. Then comes another point of differ- ence. On the one hand it is said that Philip Gadsden Holmes, also of Company L, took them up and immediately fell under three mortal wounds. I am inclined, however, to believe that this is a mistake; that the fact was that Gadsden Holmes was, at the moment he was shot, just behind the colors, endeavoring himself to
