The upper side of the bridge.
We at once covered the works with green bushes.
General Wilson threw his troops on both sides of the railroad.
The description of the fight given by both
General Maury and
Major McPhail was that on the lower side of the bridge.
The troops on the upper side were permitted to march within one hundred and fifty yards of the bridge.
When we opened on them with canister they were thrown into great confusion at once, and in twenty minutes we had them all in the ditch about ore hundred yards from the bridge.
We never permitted them to form again.
Every time they attempted it we gave them a canister.
In that ditch we kept them until darkness enabled them to retreat.
They left their dead on the field, which
[
57]
were buried on the bank of the river in a long trench.
Their wounded they carried off. Some died in the depot and were burned in that building the next morning when they left in a hurry, as
General W. H. F. Lee was only six hours behind them.
Not one shot was fired by infantry at these troops on the western or upper side of
Staunton-river bridge.
Alexander Bruce and the other boys who were with me on that glorious day will bear me out as to the truth of what I have written.
