“This was the grandest thing I saw during the war.”
Today is the sesquicentennial of the Second Battle of Manassas. Yesterday we had an account of that action recorded by Val Giles, of Company B of the 4th Texas Infantry, describing the action against a Union Zouave regiment and the actions of the James Reilly’s battery, attached to the Texas Brigade. Today, we have a parallel account of the same action, by Lawrence Daffan (right), then a seventeen-year-old private in Company G of the 4th Texas. Years later, Daffan dictated his account to his daughter Katie, who was herself secretary of the Brigade Association, active in UDC affairs and, the following year, would be named superintendent of the Texas Confederate Woman’s Home. The story was subsequently published in a commemorative book, Unveiling and Dedication of Monument to Hood’s Texas Brigade on the Capitol Grounds at Austin, Texas. It contains a wealth of information about the famous brigade, collected from wartime records and surviving veterans.
On that August afternoon in 1862, Daffan and his comrades witnessed what later came to be known as “the very vortex of Hell.” At the center of that conflagration stood the famous Fifth New York Volunteers, Duryée’s Zouaves. They took the full brunt of the attack by Daffan’s counterparts in the Fifth Texas, and Hampton’s Legion of South Carolinians, and the Eighteenth Georgia. The Zouaves held on as long as they could, and were effectively wiped out as a fighting unit. Of 525 “redlegs” who marched into the fight that day, 332 were killed or wounded, a casualty rate of 63%.
Note: the original work as published, linked in the first paragraph above, has numerous small errors in dates, spelling of names, and so on. It’s impossible at this point to know if these were errors made by Lawrence Daffan, Katie Daffan, or the typesetter. I’ve corrected (or tried to) all those in the text below, without noting individual instances. Those wishing to see the uncorrected text can click the first link above to read the original, beginning on p. 187 of the original book, or n218 in the electronic version.
On Thursday evening, August 28, 1862, marching through the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains, we heard the sound and echo of artillery, which was familiar to us, and we knew that we were approaching the enemy.
Just before sundown we entered Thoroughfare Gap. We could hear musketry and artillery at the opposite side of the gap. Anderson’s Brigade had engaged the enemy, who was holding the gap, to keep us from forming a junction with Jackson at Manassas.
Hood’s Brigade filed out of the road and started right over the top of the mountain, which was very steep climbing. By the time we were at the top we received word that Anderson had routed the enemy. We returned to the road and continued that night and marched through the gap and camped right on the ground where Anderson had driven them away. We were ordered to be ready to move at a moment’s warning. We started at 6 o’clock Friday morning, August 29.
I speak of Hood’s division in this, which consisted of Benning’s Brigade and Anderson’s Georgia Brigade, Law’s Alabama Brigade and Hood’s Texas Brigade. Hood was, at this time, Brigadier General, but acting in the capacity of Major General for this division.
We marched along in ordinary time to Manassas, until 9 or 10 o’clock. At this time we began to hear very heavy cannonade. In an hour we were in the hearing of very heavy artillery and musketry, fierce and violent. Jackson had engaged Pope and his corps. The sound of the firing continued to grow more violent. We received orders to quickstep and shortly afterward received orders to double quickstep. We were all young and stout, and it seemed to me this kept up about two hours. Pope was pressing Jackson very hard at this point. We joined Jackson and formed at his right and double-quicked into line of battle and threw out skirmishers.
At this time, as we arrived there, the firing all along Jackson’s line ceased at once. We took position Friday evening, and Friday night we had a night attack. This and the attack at Raccoon Mountain, Tennessee, were the only night attacks that I know of made by the Confederates. This attack caused great confusion, and I could never understand what benefit it was. We slept that night very close to the enemy, in fact could not speak aloud or above a whisper. I had a very bad cold at this time, contracted on the retreat from Yorktown, and an officer was sent from headquarters “to tell than man who was constantly coughing to go from the front to the rear, where he could not be heard.” I went back, near half a mile, with my blanket and accouterments. I slept alone, under a large oak tree, coughing all night. I didn’t know the maneuvers of our regiment between this [time] and day[light], but I joined them early Saturday morning [August 30]. We formed in perfect order early in the day. Jackson brought on the attack on our left about noon and pressed the enemy until they began to give way in front of him. This drew a number of troops from in front of us to support those Jackson, was driving back on our left.
General Lee’s headquarters were in sight of where I was. About 4 o’clock in the afternoon I saw a considerable commotion in General Lee’s headquarters; he, his staff officers and couriers. The couriers darted off with their instructions to different commanders of divisions, in a few minutes a courier dashed up to General [Jerome B.] Robertson, commanding the Texas Brigade. These couriers and orderlies notified the respective Colonels. The order “attention” was given, then the order “to load,” then “forward,” “guide center.” We went through the heavy timber and emerged into an open field. We had a famous battery with us, [Captain James] Reilly’s Battery [Rowan Artillery], with six guns, four Napoleon and two six-p0und rifles.
Captain Reilly had always promised us that if the location of the company permitted, he would charge with us. We opened and made room between the Fourth and Fifth Texas for Reilly’s Battery to come in. As we started, the battery started.
Young’s Branch was between us and a hill on the other side, which was occupied by a Federal Battery [Curran’s Battery], which was playing on us. This turned into a charge as soon as we emerged from the timber. We had gone a short distance when Reilly unlimbered two of his guns and opened on the Federals. We moved past these guns while they were firing. As we passed on the other two guns came in some distance ahead of those that were firing, swung into position and unlimbered. It seemed to me by the time the first two had stopped, the second two opened fire. This was done remarkably quick. They charged with us in this charge until we arrived at Young’s Branch ; two sections, two Napoleon guns each, two firing while the other two would limber up and run past them, swing into position and open fire.
This was the grandest thing I saw during the war — the charge of Reilly’s Battery with the Texas Brigade. I don’t know whether they shot accurately or not, it was done so fast. But I do know that it attracted the attention of the Yankee battery on the hill, diverting their attention from us.
Reilly’s Battery were North Carolinians and were with us all during the war and they never lost a gun.
In this charge at Manassas we saw a Zouave regiment [5th New York Volunteers, Duryée’s Zouaves]. It stood immediately in front of the Fifth Texas to our right. It was a very fine regiment. As the Fifth Texas approached, it checked the speed of the Fifth in its quick charge. The Fifth Texas, Hampton Legion and the Fourth Texas had a tendency to swing around them. As the Fifth Texas approached them, I saw the blaze of their rifles reached nearly from one to the other.
The First Texas, Hampton’s Legion and Fourth Texas from their position gave the Zouaves an enfilading fire, which virtually wiped them off the face of the earth. I never could understand why this fine Zouave regiment would make the stand they did in front of the brigade until nearly every one was killed.
We rallied at Young’s Branch. I looked up the hill which we had descended and the hill was red with uniforms of the Zouaves. They were from New York.
We ascended the hill out of Young’s branch, charged a battery of six guns [Curran’s], supported by a line of Pennsylvania infantry. This battery was near enough to use on us grapeshot and canister. As we came near to it one of the guns was pointed directly at my company and lanyard strung. Our Captain commanded Company G to right and left oblique from it. I was on the right and with a few others went into Company H. At this time one of the artillerymen threw the main beam, and this threw the cannon directly on Company H. Company H received a load of canister which killed four or five men.
I was immediately with Lieutenant [C. E.] Jones and [Private R. W.] Ransom of that company, who were both killed right at my feet. I stepped over both of them. Captain [James T.] Hunter, now living, was also shot down at that time. Most of the company were my schoolmates.
This last shot threw smoke and dust all over me, and the shot whizzed on both sides of me. Lieutenant Jones was shot in the head and feet, but I was not touched, When the smoke cleared away we had these guns, and they were so hot I couldn’t bear my hands on them. I then fired one shot at this retreating infantry which the rest of the brigade had been engaged with. This wound up that day’s engagement for us, except the Fifth Texas. A part of their regiment and their colors were carried about five miles after the retreating enemy.
We returned to Young’s branch and my attention was attracted to our support coming down the same hill that we had come down.
There were four lines of battle of Longstreet’s Corps in perfect order, which passed us and took up the fight with the retreating enemy where we left it off. This battle was fought on the 30th and 31st of August, 1862.
I can’t understand why the Federals have always attached so little importance to this battle, as they lost many gallant men there. They were terribly defeated, and may have been ashamed of their commanding general.
Image: 5th New York Zouaves, by Don Troiani
“The domned skillipins skeddaddle extinsively — extinsively, sir!”
One of the great firsthand accounts of Texas troops in the Civil War is Val C. Giles’ Rags and Hope: Four Years with Hood’s Brigade, Fourth Texas Infantry, 1861-1865 (Mary Lasswell, ed.). The book was originally published in 1961, at the time of the Civil War Centennial, and (to my knowledge) has never been reprinted. Copies are hard to find, and correspondingly expensive. That’s a shame, because Giles’ narrative is poignant, vivid, and often very funny.
Giles’ account of Second Manassas shares much with that of his postwar friend and fellow 4th Texas veteran, Lawrence Daffan of Company G. It’s a harrowing description, and Giles (Company B) was much shaken by the carnage he saw around him within the regiment. That’s for a later time, though; for now, I want to follow-up Daffan’s dramatic description of Captain James Reilly’s Battery D of the 1st North Carolina Artillery with Giles’ description of the same event. As always, Giles (right, in a studio portrait taken in Austin at the time of his enlistment in 1861) has a keen ear for vivid characters and humorous spectacle:*
When I say the greatest battles of the world have been fought by the infantry, I don’t mean to reflect on the artillery or cavalry, or intimate that they have ever failed to do their duty. Stuart’s Cavalry was always vigilant. They were the eyes and ears of the army, and while the infantry slept, these gallant fellows were far away on the flanks, watching the enemy, guarding the fords, bridges and crossroads, escorting supply trains, and, for weeks at a time, fighting every day. During the war I used to think that the artillerymen were the bravest men on earth. They could pull through deeper mud, ford. deeper streams, shoot faster, swear louder, and stand more hard pounding than any other class of men in the service. . . .
Attached to the Texas Brigade was a fine battery of six Napoleon guns, commanded by Captain Reilly. Reilly had been an artillery sergeant in the old Army, and when the trouble began in 1861, he cast his lot with the Confederacy. He was an Irishman, rough, gruff, grizzly, and brave. He loved his profession and knew his business.
In this battle of Second Manassas, we witnessed a fine display of his skill and courage. General Hood instructed his colonels to halt their regiments when they reached Young Branch, which ran parallel with our line of battle, but when the Brigade reached the branch, the enemy was falling back, all along the line, and many of our field officers were killed or wounded. Colonel J. B. Robertson, Lieutenant Colonel J. C. Upton, Major Bryant, Captain J. D. Roberdeau, and Adjutant Campbell Woods of the Fifth Texas Regiment had all fallen before they reached the branch. The regiment was left without field officers, so the men pressed over the Zouaves, across the stream, and up the hill beyond.
Lieutenant Colonel [S. Z.] Ruff, Majors [John C.] Griffis, [John B.] O’Neill, [D. L.] Jarrett, and [Joel C.] Roper of the Eighteenth Georgia had gone down. Majors [William P.] Townsend, [D. U.] Barziza, and [James T.] Hunter of the Fourth had also fallen. Colonel [William T.] Wofford of the Eighteenth Georgia, Colonel [Benjamin F.] Carter of the Fourth Texas, Lieutenant Colonel P. A. Work of the First Texas, and Colonel [W. M.] Gary of Hampton’s South Carolina Legion finally succeeded in checking our men and bringing them back under the crest of the hill.
It was then that “Old Tarantula,” Captain Reilly, made his appearance on the field. He turned a point of timber to our left and came toward us in a sweeping run. Every horse in the battery carried a rider and the caissons and gun carriages were covered with red caps holding on like monkeys as they thundered over gullies, rocks, even over dead and wounded soldiers.
“Old Tarantula” rode fifty yards in front of his battery. He hurriedly selected an elevation, and at the wave of his hand, the guns were whirled into position and every artilleryman appeared to hit the ground at once. He threw his field glass to his eye, swept the horizon at one glance, then sang out: “Six hundred yards — shrapnel!”’
The guns bellowed and roared, the shells passing ten feet over our heads. Many of .the men sprang to the top of the hill to see the effect of Reilly’s shells. He was accurate in distance, for every shell exploded right in the midst of the confused and retreating enemy. He sat on his horse, calmly giving his commands, increasing the distance as the broken columns retired.
Major [William] Harvey Sellers, General Hood’s Assistant Adjutant General, rode up to the battery on his wounded gray horse to deliver some order. Old Reilly greeted him with a grand flourish and gleefully said, pointing in the direction of the bursting shells, “See, Major, see! The domned skillipins skeddaddle extinsively — extinsively, sir!”
I have no idea what “skillipins” is a phonetic spelling of, but they skeddaddled — extinsively!
___________________________
* I’ve corrected spellings of proper names without further note. Image: Reilly’s Battery in action at Gettysburg, by Dale Gallon.
The Veteran, the Historian, and the Things Not Seen
Over the Christmas holiday in 1905 Lawrence Daffan (1845-1907), a former private in the Fourth Texas Infantry, dictated to his daughter Katie a biographical sketch of his life, along with more detailed accounts of two major actions he served in. After his death, Katie published these in a memorial book, My Father as I Remember Him.
In the memoir, Daffan recalled that after the Army of Northern Virginia was turned back at Gettysburg and withdrew across the Potomac,
we then marched to Culpepper, where we camped a while, then on to Fredericksburg, thence to Port Royal, where we camped some weeks.
While at Culpepper we had something of a riot in our regiment, caused by one of the regiment being ordered to wear a ball and chain, which we thought was a disgrace to our regiment and to the State of Texas. A number of us boys, who did not know any better, attempted to take him from the guard. Charges of mutiny were made against twenty-five of us, and we were put under arrest. Our captains were responsible for our appearance at court. This relieved us from drill and every other duty for six weeks of the summer.
Our trial was ordered to take place at General Longstreet’s headquarters, at Fredericksburg, in the first days of September, 1863. We were then camped at Port Royal, twenty miles east of Fredericksburg. We were all ordered to report to General Longstreet’s headquarters, near Fredericksburg, to be tried. On the way there I stopped at my uncle’s home, Champ Jones, twelve or fifteen miles from Fredericksburg, and did not arrive at Fredericksburg until after my “crowd” had arrived there. In going, I was alone. There was no guard with any of us. In looking for the headquarters where I might be tried, I went to the camp of the battalion of artillery, and the major commanding met me. I asked him to tell me where the General’s headquarters were, and he said “At the Reynold’s place, a large, white house about a mile away.” He said, “What are you going for?” I said, “I am going to be court-martialed for mutiny.” He said, with astonishment, “What, looking for a court to be court-martialed? That beats everything I ever heard of.” I said, “yes,” and he replied to go ahead, that he didn’t think I would be shot. I was then eighteen years old. We were all cleared through the influence of General Lee.
This anecdote was first widely published forty years ago in Harold B. Simpson’s Hood’s Texas Brigade: Lee’s Grenadier Guard, and has been mentioned in other secondary accounts since. To my knowledge, it’s not corroborated by other firsthand accounts. (Giles’ Rags and Hope mostly skips over this period of relative inactivity.) Ten years ago, Texas A&M historian Charles E. Brooks included this anecdote in his journal article, “The Social and Cultural Dynamics of Soldiering in Hood’s Texas Brigade,” published in the Journal of Southern History. Brooks briefly summarizes Daffan’s account, and then assesses it in terms of its time and place — not 1863, but 1905:
Written years later after the cult of the Lost Cause had romanticized the war and magnified the heroic deeds of Confederate soldiers, Daffan’s account only noted parenthetically that neither he nor the others “knew any better” at the time. But his amplifying comment was characteristic of many wartime reminiscences, which often glossed over the continuous conflicts that had taken place between officers and men concerning matters of discipline and subordination. Young Private Daffan and the others knew exactly what they were doing when they tried to rescue their fellow soldier. Although enlisting as a soldier of the Confederate Army required soldiers to occupy a new social status somewhere between freedom and slavery, the ball-and-chain punishment had blurred the distinction beyond what they were willing to accept.
Shorter: Daffan’s account is a reminiscence that has to be understood in the context of the time it was recorded.
Comparing these two passages makes for a good illustration of what a professional historian does. Daffan’s account, like so many written about that same time, stresses the humor and devil-may-care attitude of soldiering during the war. Daffan was indeed eighteen at the of this incident, but he was also a veteran (by his own count) of at least six different engagements, including Second Manassas, Sharpsburg and Little Round Top. The soldiers understood what they were doing when they tried to overpower the prisoner’s guard. Daffan and his compatriots also understood at least the potential penalty upon conviction of mutiny by a court martial; it cannot have seemed to Daffan at the time to have been such a summertime lark as he suggests when he describes his arrest as relieving “us from drill and every other duty for six weeks of the summer.”
Brooks’ reference to the pervasiveness of the Lost Cause is not supposition; it’s true both generally, and in Lawrence Daffan’s case specifically. Daffan was an active member of UCV and the Hood’s Texas Brigade Association; his daughter Katie was secretary and sole female member of the latter organization. When the local UDC chapter bestowed the honorary title of “colonel” on Lawrence Daffan, he adopted it immediately, and used it in both his personal and professional life so much that, upon his death, newspapers around the state referred to him as “Col. Daffan,” even though he’d never risen above the rank of private during the war.
Daffan was captured late in 1863 an spent the remainder of the war in the prison camp at Rock Island. Although he spent almost as much time as prisoner as he did as a soldier in the field, in his memoir he generally declines to discuss the hardships of this period in his life, commenting instead on the sheer boredom of the experience, where one day was exactly like the one before, and exactly like the one following, so that there was little concept of the passage of time. In fact, Daffan apparently left much unsaid in his dictation, and found his recollections, as they appeared on the page, difficult emotionally. As a preface to his autobiographical sketch, Katie wrote that
he would frequently related some anecdote or little incident, which he did not deem worthy of being included in the sketch, but which was invariably interesting.
Once or twice, while reviewing the battles [i.e., Second Manassas and Sharpsburg], he gave way to weeping and expressions of the deepest feeling, very unusual for him.
He told me that it carried him back to the days when he was a boy, that it was all so vivid, and so much had occurred since to change him, and so many of his friends and comrades had died, that it made him very sad.
What were the “invariably interesting” anecdotes that Daffan thought too inconsequential to commit to paper? More important, what ugly and terrible experiences remained, insufficiently blurred by the passage of time and memory, that he declined to recall for Katie’s note-taking? My guess is that the latter includes Gettysburg, notably missing from Daffan’s story, where the Fourth Texas remained pinned on the slopes of Little Round Top after the failed assault on the Federal left on July 2, or the habit of the “hundred dazers” walking post on the wall at Rock Island occasionally to relieve their own boredom by squeezing off rounds into the prisoners’ barracks.
None of this diminishes the value of the memoirs of old veterans like Daffan, but it does remind us that, even as important as they are as the record of the men who were there, they nonetheless have real limitations. Their tales of battle, hardship, humor and adventure are only as complete as they themselves recalled them.
Or were willing to.
___________
Image: Fife and drums at the United Confederate Veterans’ reunion, Washington, D.C., 1917. Library of Congress.
“The domned skillipins skeddaddle extinsively — extinsively, sir!”
One of the great firsthand accounts of Texas troops in the Civil War is Val C. Giles’ Rags and Hope: Four Years with Hood’s Brigade, Fourth Texas Infantry, 1861-1865 (Mary Lasswell, ed.). The book was originally published in 1961, at the time of the Civil War Centennial, and (to my knowledge) has never been reprinted. Copies are hard to find, and correspondingly expensive. That’s a shame, because Giles’ narrative is poignant, vivid, and often very funny.
Giles’ accoun
t of Second Manassas shares much with that of his postwar friend and fellow 4th Texas veteran, Lawrence Daffan of Company G.* It’s a harrowing description, and Giles (Company B) was much shaken by the carnage he saw around him within the regiment. That’s for a later time, though; for now, I want to follow-up Daffan’s dramatic description of Captain James Reilly’s Battery D of the 1st North Carolina Artillery with Giles’ description of the same event. As always, Giles (left, in a studio portrait taken in Austin at the time of his enlistment in 1861) has a keen ear for vivid characters and humorous spectacle:
When I say the greatest battles of the world have been fought by the infantry, I don’t mean to reflect on the artillery or cavalry, or intimate that they have ever failed to do their duty. Stuart’s Cavalry was always vigilant. They were the eyes and ears of the army, and while the infantry slept, these gallant fellows were far away on the flanks, watching the enemy, guarding the fords, bridges and crossroads, escorting supply trains, and, for weeks at a time, fighting every day. During the war I used to think that the artillerymen were the bravest men on earth. They could pull through deeper mud, ford. deeper streams, shoot faster, swear louder, and stand more hard pounding than any other class of men in the service. . . .
Attached to the Texas Brigade was a fine battery of six Napoleon guns, commanded by Captain Reilly. Reilly had been an artillery sergeant in the old Army, and when the trouble began in 1861, he cast his lot with the Confederacy. He was an Irishman, rough, gruff, grizzly, and brave. He loved his profession and knew his business.
In this battle of Second Manassas, we witnessed a fine display of his skill and courage. General Hood instructed his colonels to halt their regiments when they reached Young Branch, which ran parallel with our line of battle, but when the Brigade reached the branch, the enemy was falling back, all along the line, and many of our field officers were killed or wounded. Colonel J. B. Robertson, Lieutenant Colonel J. C. Upton, Major Bryant, Captain J. D. Roberdeau, and Adjutant Campbell Woods of the Fifth Texas Regiment had all fallen before they reached the branch. The regiment was left without field officers, so the men pressed over the Zouaves, across the stream, and up the hill beyond.
Lieutenant Colonel [S. Z.] Ruff, Majors [John C.] Griffis, [John B.] O’Neill, [D. L.] Jarrett, and [Joel C.] Roper of the Eighteenth Georgia had gone down. Majors [William P.] Townsend, [D. U.] Barziza, and [James T.] Hunter of the Fourth had also fallen. Colonel [William T.] Wofford of the Eighteenth Georgia, Colonel [Benjamin F.] Carter of the Fourth Texas, Lieutenant Colonel P. A. Work of the First Texas, and Colonel [W. M.] Gary of Hampton’s South Carolina Legion finally succeeded in checking our men and bringing them back under the crest of the hill.
It was then that “Old Tarantula,” Captain Reilly, made his appearance on the field. He turned a point of timber to our left and came toward us in a sweeping run. Every horse in the battery carried a rider and the caissons and gun carriages were covered with red caps holding on like monkeys as they thundered over gullies, rocks, even over dead and wounded soldiers.
“Old Tarantula” rode fifty yards in front of his battery. He hurriedly selected an elevation, and at the wave of his hand, the guns were whirled into position and every artilleryman appeared to hit the ground at once. He threw his field glass to his eye, swept the horizon at one glance, then sang out: “Six hundred yards — shrapnel!”’
The guns bellowed and roared, the shells passing ten feet over our heads. Many of .the men sprang to the top of the hill to see the effect of Reilly’s shells. He was accurate in distance, for every shell exploded right in the midst of the confused and retreating enemy. He sat on his horse, calmly giving his commands, increasing the distance as the broken columns retired.
Major [William] Harvey Sellers, General Hood’s Assistant Adjutant General, rode up to the battery on his wounded gray horse to deliver some order. Old Reilly greeted him with a grand flourish and gleefully said, pointing in the direction of the bursting shells, “See, Major, see! The domned skillipins skeddaddle extinsively — extinsively, sir!”
I have no idea what “skillipins” is a phonetic spelling of, but they skeddaddled — extinsively!
___________________________
* As with Daffan’s account, I’ve corrected spellings of proper names without further note. Image: Reilly’s Battery in action at Gettysburg, by Dale Gallon.
“This was the grandest thing I saw during the war.”
This year marks the 100th anniversary of the dedication of the Hood’s Texas Brigade Monument on the grounds of the Texas State Capitol in Austin. The following year the Brigade Association published a commemorative book, Unveiling and Dedication of Monument to Hood’s Texas Brigade on the Capitol Grounds at Austin, Texas. It contains a wealth of information about the famous brigade, collected from wartime records and surviving veterans.
One of the remarkable accounts in the book is this description of the brigade’s advance during the Second Battle of Manassas, late on the afternoon of August 30, 1862. The author is Lawrence Daffan (left), then a seventeen-year-old private from Montgomery County, Texas, assigned to Company G of the Fourth Texas Infantry. Years later, Daffan dictated his account to his daughter Katie, who was herself secretary of the Brigade Association, active in UDC affairs and, the following year, would be named superintendent of the Texas Confederate Woman’s Home.
On that August afternoon, Daffan and his comrades witnessed what later came to be known as “the very vortex of Hell.” At the center of that conflagration stood the famous Fifth New York Volunteers, Duryée’s Zouaves. They took the full brunt of the attack by Daffan’s counterparts in the Fifth Texas, and Hampton’s Legion of South Carolinians, and the Eighteenth Georgia. The Zouaves held on as long as they could, and were effectively wiped out as a fighting unit. Of 525 “redlegs” who marched into the fight that day, 332 were killed or wounded, a casualty rate of 63%.
Note: the original work as published, linked in the first paragraph above, has numerous small errors in dates, spelling of names, and so on. It’s impossible at this point to know if these were errors made by Lawrence Daffan, Katie Daffan, or the typesetter. I’ve corrected (or tried to) all those in the text below, without noting individual instances. Those wishing to see the uncorrected text can click the first link above to read the original, beginning on p. 187 of the original book, or n218 in the electronic version.
On Thursday evening, August 28, 1862, marching through the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains, we heard the sound and echo of artillery, which was familiar to us, and we knew that we were approaching the enemy.
Just before sundown we entered Thoroughfare Gap. We could hear musketry and artillery at the opposite side of the gap. Anderson’s Brigade had engaged the enemy, who was holding the gap, to keep us from forming a junction with Jackson at Manassas.
Hood’s Brigade filed out of the road and started right over the top of the mountain, which was very steep climbing. By the time we were at the top we received word that Anderson had routed the enemy. We returned to the road and continued that night and marched through the gap and camped right on the ground where Anderson had driven them away. We were ordered to be ready to move at a moment’s warning. We started at 6 o’clock Friday morning, August 29.
I speak of Hood’s division in this, which consisted of Benning’s Brigade and Anderson’s Georgia Brigade, Law’s Alabama Brigade and Hood’s Texas Brigade. Hood was, at this time, Brigadier General, but acting in the capacity of Major General for this division.
We marched along in ordinary time to Manassas, until 9 or 10 o’clock. At this time we began to hear very heavy cannonade. In an hour we were in the hearing of very heavy artillery and musketry, fierce and violent. Jackson had engaged Pope and his corps. The sound of the firing continued to grow more violent. We received orders to quickstep and shortly afterward received orders to double quickstep. We were all young and stout, and it seemed to me this kept up about two hours. Pope was pressing Jackson very hard at this point. We joined Jackson and formed at his right and double-quicked into line of battle and threw out skirmishers.
At this time, as we arrived there, the firing all along Jackson’s line ceased at once. We took position Friday evening, and Friday night we had a night attack. This and the attack at Raccoon Mountain, Tennessee, were the only night attacks that I know of made by the Confederates. This attack caused great confusion, and I could never understand what benefit it was. We slept that night very close to the enemy, in fact could not speak aloud or above a whisper. I had a very bad cold at this time, contracted on the retreat from Yorktown, and an officer was sent from headquarters “to tell than man who was constantly coughing to go from the front to the rear, where he could not be heard.” I went back, near half a mile, with my blanket and accouterments. I slept alone, under a large oak tree, coughing all night. I didn’t know the maneuvers of our regiment between this [time] and day[light], but I joined them early Saturday morning [August 30]. We formed in perfect order early in the day. Jackson brought on the attack on our left about noon and pressed the enemy until they began to give way in front of him. This drew a number of troops from in front of us to support those Jackson, was driving back on our left.
General Lee’s headquarters were in sight of where I was. About 4 o’clock in the afternoon I saw a considerable commotion in General Lee’s headquarters; he, his staff officers and couriers. The couriers darted off with their instructions to different commanders of divisions, in a few minutes a courier dashed up to General [Jerome B.] Robertson, commanding the Texas Brigade. These couriers and orderlies notified the respective Colonels. The order “attention” was given, then the order “to load,” then “forward,” “guide center.” We went through the heavy timber and emerged into an open field. We had a famous battery with us, [Captain James] Reilly’s Battery [Rowan Artillery], with six guns, four Napoleon and two six-p0und rifles.
Captain Reilly had always promised us that if the location of the company permitted, he would charge with us. We opened and made room between the Fourth and Fifth Texas for Reilly’s Battery to come in. As we started, the battery started.
Young’s Branch was between us and a hill on the other side, which was occupied by a Federal Battery [Curran’s Battery], which was playing on us. This turned into a charge as soon as we emerged from the timber. We had gone a short distance when Reilly unlimbered two of his guns and opened on the Federals. We moved past these guns while they were firing. As we passed on the other two guns came in some distance ahead of those that were firing, swung into position and unlimbered. It seemed to me by the time the first two had stopped, the second two opened fire. This was done remarkably quick. They charged with us in this charge until we arrived at Young’s Branch ; two sections, two Napoleon guns each, two firing while the other two would limber up and run past them, swing into position and open fire.
This was the grandest thing I saw during the war — the charge of Reilly’s Battery with the Texas Brigade. I don’t know whether they shot accurately or not, it was done so fast. But I do know that it attracted the attention of the Yankee battery on the hill, diverting their attention from us.
Reilly’s Battery were North Carolinians and were with us all during the war and they never lost a gun.
The First Texas, Hampton’s Legion and Fourth Texas from their position gave the Zouaves an enfilading fire, which virtually wiped them off the face of the earth. I never could understand why this fine Zouave regiment would make the stand they did in front of the brigade until nearly every one was killed.
We rallied at Young’s Branch. I looked up the hill which we had descended and the hill was red with uniforms of the Zouaves. They were from New York.
We ascended the hill out of Young’s branch, charged a battery of six guns [Curran’s], supported by a line of Pennsylvania infantry. This battery was near enough to use on us grapeshot and canister. As we came near to it one of the guns was pointed directly at my company and lanyard strung. Our Captain commanded Company G to right and left oblique from it. I was on the right and with a few others went into Company H. At this time one of the artillerymen threw the main beam, and this threw the cannon directly on Company H. Company H received a load of canister which killed four or five men.
I was immediately with Lieutenant [C. E.] Jones and [Private R. W.] Ransom of that company, who were both killed right at my feet. I stepped over both of them. Captain [James T.] Hunter, now living, was also shot down at that time. Most of the company were my schoolmates.
This last shot threw smoke and dust all over me, and the shot whizzed on both sides of me. Lieutenant Jones was shot in the head and feet, but I was not touched, When the smoke cleared away we had these guns, and they were so hot I couldn’t bear my hands on them. I then fired one shot at this retreating infantry which the rest of the brigade had been engaged with. This wound up that day’s engagement for us, except the Fifth Texas. A part of their regiment and their colors were carried about five miles after the retreating enemy.
We returned to Young’s branch and my attention was attracted to our support coming down the same hill that we had come down.
There were four lines of battle of Longstreet’s Corps in perfect order, which passed us and took up the fight with the retreating enemy where we left it off. This battle was fought on the 30th and 31st of August, 1863.
I can’t understand why the Federals have always attached so little importance to this battle, as they lost many gallant men there. They were terribly defeated, and may have been ashamed of their commanding general.
Image: 5th New York Zouaves, by Don Troiani
Dead Confederates, A Civil War Era Blog 
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