Southern Historical Society Papers, Volume 19.
Reverend J. William Jones, Ed.

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[290] known as Fisher's Hill, with its right resting on or near the Massanutta mountains, while the extreme left of his infantry line reached no further than the termination of the ridge of Fisher's Hill, in the direction of North mountain. The interval was protected only by a small body of cavalry.

There may be some inaccuracies in the above description, but that was the situation as it appeared to me—a private soldier occupying the humble position of ‘No. 6,’ or fuse-cutter, in Captain Massey's battery of artillery. While a private soldier's opportunity for knowing the general arrangement or disposition of the whole army at the commencement of or during an engagement is very limited, yet it must be confessed that the veterans of the Confederate army had all become generals in experience at the time of which I write.

The battery to which I belonged was placed in position on the top of a high hill at the extreme left of the infantry line. The army having arrived on the ground and been placed in position the day before, the men had fortified to the best of their ability with the poor tools they had to work with. General Ramseur had been put in command of the division of the heroic and invincible Rodes, who had fallen two days before at Winchester. This division occupied the breastworks to the right and left of our battery. That General Ramseur was as brave a man as ever drew a sword in defence of the South no one can deny, but that he was wanting in those qualities which could estimate the numbers or penetrate the designs of the enemy had been but too apparent on several previous occasions.¹