until the middle of April, 1865, they were in service, and no battery
saw more service or suffered more in it. Its story was a part of the story
of the Southern Army in Virginia. The Captain was a rigid disciplinarian,
and his company had more work to do than most new companies.
A pious churchman, of the old puritanical type not uncommon to Virginia,
he looked after the spiritual as well as the physical welfare of his men,
and his chaplain or he read prayers at the head of his company
every morning during the war. At first he was not popular with the men,
he made the duties of camp life so onerous to them, it was
"nothing but drilling and praying all the time," they said.
But he had not commanded very long before they came to know
the stuff that was in him. He had not been in service a year
before he had had four horses shot under him, and when later on
he was offered the command of a battalion, the old company petitioned
to be one of his batteries, and still remained under his command.
Before the first year was out the battery had, through its own elements,
and the discipline of the Captain, become a cohesive force,
and a distinct integer in the Army of Northern Virginia.
Young farmer recruits knew of its prestige and expressed preference for it
of many batteries of rapidly growing or grown reputation. Owing to
its high stand, the old and clumsy guns with which it had started out
were taken from it, and in their place was presented a battery of four fine,
brass, twelve-pound Napoleons of the newest and most approved kind,
and two three-inch Parrotts, all captured. The men were as pleased with them
as children with new toys. The care and attention needed to keep them
in prime order broke the monotony of camp life. They soon had
abundant opportunities to test their power. They worked admirably,
carried far, and were extraordinarily accurate in their aim.
The men from admiration of their guns grew to have first a pride in,
and then an affection for, them, and gave them nicknames as they did