It is said that our friends, the enemy, across the lines fared badly as well in shoddy, and that too from their own neighbors and countrymen.
It was awfully nasty work getting down to that stone wall for giving orders or receiving information, the way swept by the enemy's volume of fire over every foot. Once at the wall it was fairly snug, but the coming back was still worse, and one drew a long breath on emerging safely from the deadly fusilade.
We could only manage it on foot by making short rushes from point to point, affording perhaps some little cover. It was on such a duty that my friend Lord King was killed. He was A. D. C. to McLaws, of the family of Kings of southern Georgia.
The ranking major-general of our corps was L. McLaws, his division made up of Georgians, Mississippians, and South Carolinians. He was an officer of much experience and most careful. Fond of detail, his command was in excellent condition, and his ground and position well examined and reconnoitered; not brilliant in the field or quick in movement there or elsewhere, he could always be counted on and had secured the entire confidence of his officers and men.
Maj.-Gen. John B. Hood's appearance was very striking; in age only 34, he had a personality that would attract attention anywhere. Very tall and somewhat loose-jointed; a long, oval face shaded by yellowish beard, plentiful hair of same color, and voice of great power and compass.
With very winning manners, he is said to have used these advantages actively for his own advancement. But apart from that, his services in the field were of the best. Resigning from the United States Army he was made colonel of one of the three Texas regiments that were sent to Virginia. There he quickly showed his soldierly qualities and was made brigadier-general over the brigade formed of the three Texas regiments and the Third Arkansas. It was conspicuous in all of the many combats in which it was engaged, and Hood soon came on for promotion to one of the divisions of Longstreet's corps. As major-general he continued to display high qualities and he might be considered an ideal officer of that rank and command. At Gettysburg he received a wound in the arm. It is said that at Richmond, while convalescing, he suffered himself to criticize very freely our operations in Pennsylvania. As soon as recovered he resumed his division, which he took to Chickamauga, where his conduct was magnificent. There he lost a leg. Longstreet immediately recommended him to promotion to lieutenant-general, which was done, and on recovery Hood was assigned to the Western army under J. E. Johnston. There I must leave him. His biographers will relate his promotion to the rank of full general; his superseding Johnston; his march to the enemy's rear; the sanguinary battles of Franklin and Nashville, and the crushing defeat of his expedition by Thomas, making possible the great decisive strategic operation of Sherman's "March to the sea."