At about noon on the 15th, General Butterfield, with our Third Division, moved forward to attack an earthwork and a four-gun battery, which the enemy held in his front. We moved forward on the left to support him; and encountering little opposition at first, advanced somewhat farther than the Third Division. We took position in the edge of a woods, where we made use of a rail fence and some logs to build a breastwork in anticipation of an attack, which the skirmish firing in front warned us was coming. We soon had sight of the advancing enemy. A few volleys from us, however, and they broke and ran. In a short time they again came up, with a new line. We disposed of that almost as quickly as the first. A third time they repeated the attempt, and again we beat them back.
Now came the order to pursue. My Company, and the companies on my right, moved forward about two hundred yards in the woods. Suddenly we found that we were on the flank of a Brigade that was still stubbornly fighting with troops of the Twenty-Third Corps and the left companies of our Regiment. They were in a peach orchard, the nearest of them not fifty yards away. I hastily wheeled my Company, and Company H to the left, and opened fire. At such short range, and in such a crowd, every shot must have counted. The Confederates did not wait for much, but skedaddled as fast as their legs could carry them.
Just as the last of them were disappearing from sight, I saw a man in Confederate uniform come running toward my Company, hatless, but with gun in hand. I supposed that he was coming in to give himself up. He came within twenty yards of us, then apparently noticed for the first time that we were Yankees. He immediately started to run back. I called to him to surrender, but it only increased his speed. Finding that he did not stop, two of my men fired at him, and both hit him. He fell dead almost instantly upon the field. I went forward then and examined him. He was a mere boy, not over twenty years of age. In his pocket we found his order, not two weeks old, from the conscript officer of his district, notifying him to join the army. I have seen fields of battle in front of our Regiment, covered over with the dead, without experiencing the pang of regret that I felt for this poor lad who, scarcely out from home, and too frightened and confused to know what to do, thus sadly met his fate.