nearly two years, or until the artillery was made a separate branch of
the service. While in winter quarters, when many troops were granted
furloughs, those men having no home to which they could visit like
the others, were invited by members of the brigade to visit their own
homes in South Carolina and remain with their families the length
of their leave of absence. Many availed themselves of these kind
invitations, and spent a pleasant month in the hospitable homes of
this State. The ladies of South Carolina, appreciating their isolated
condition and forced separation from their homes, with no kind mother
or sister with opportunities to cheer them with their delicate favors,
made them all a handsome uniform and outfit of underwear, and sent to
them as a Christmas gift. Never during the long years of the struggle
did the hearts of South Carolinians fail to respond to those of the
brave Virginians, when they heard the sound of Kemper's guns belching
forth death and destruction to the enemy, or when the battle was
raging loud and furious.

On the morning of the 16th of July, when all was still and quiet in
camp, a puff of blue smoke from a hill about three miles off, followed
by the roar of a cannon, the hissing noise of a shell overhead, its
loud report, was the first intimation the troops had that the enemy
had commenced the advance, it is needless to say excitement and
consternation overwhelmed the camp. While all were expecting and
anxiously awaiting it, still the idea of being now in the face of a
real live enemy, on the eve of a great battle, where death and horrors
of war, such as all had heard of but never realized, came upon them
with no little feelings of dread and emotion. No man living, nor any
who ever lived, retaining his natural faculties, ever faced death
in battle without some feeling of dread or superstitious awe. The
soldiers knew, too, the eyes of the world were upon them, that they