This famous organization participated in forty-eight Engagements and many skirmishes.
Written by Private Charles P. Young, and Revised by Captain Thomas Ellett, thirty-eight years after close of the war.On Friday, March 14, 1862, there assembled at the wholesale warehouse of Messrs. Crenshaw & Co., on the Basin bank, between Tenth and Eleventh streets, Richmond, Va., one of the jolliest, most rollicking, fun-loving crowd of youngsters, between the ages of 16 and 25, that were ever thrown together haphazard, composed of clerks, book-keepers, salesmen, compositors, with a small sprinkling of solid business men, from Richmond, reinforced with as sturdy-looking a lot of farmer boys from the counties of Orange, Louisa, Spotsylvania and Culpeper as one generally comes across. The occasion of the gathering was the formation of an artillery company for active service in the field, and after the usual preliminaries, an organization was soon effected, with the following officers: Captain, William G. Crenshaw. Senior First Lieutenant, James Ellett. Junior First Lieutenant, Charles L. Hobson. Senior Second Lieutenant, Andrew B. Johnston. Junior Second Lieutenant, Thorras Ellett. The battery consisted of six guns: Two 10-pound Parrotts, two 12-pound brass Howitzers, and two 6-pound brass guns. The company was christened ‘The Crenshaw Battery,’ in honor of its first captain. His gallant bearing on the field of battle subsequently, and his noble generosity to the company, always, proved that the name was fitly chosen. Captain Crenshaw equipped the battery with handsome uniforms, overcoats, blankets, shoes, underclothing, and everything necessary for its comfort, at his own expense, and advanced the money necessary for the purchase of horses and guns to the Confederate government, thereby getting into the [276] field much earlier than would have been the case under ordinary circumstances. The battery was sent first to Camp Lee for instruction, and in an incredibly short time had become so proficient in drill and field movements as to be ordered to the front. It saw its first service in the fields around Fredericksburg, being attached to a South Carolina brigade of infantry under Brigadier-General Maxey Gregg, where the bugles almost daily sounded an alarm, with the harnessing and and hitching of horses and a gallop down the Telegraph or Catharpin road, with cannoneers mounted; but no enemy to be found, was the usual result. The men became so accustomed to these alarms that they began to enjoy them, and they in no small degree preferred them to the long, tedious, and bloody campaign they were soon to enter upon. In the mean time McClellan had landed his hosts on the Peninsula, Williamsburg had been fought, and his army was soon thundering at the gates of Richmond. Lee had concentrated his army in front of him, and the Crenshaw Battery was ordered to take position on the left of the line, and was soon to receive its baptism of fire in one of the most hotly-contested and hardest-fought battles of the war. The Battery, with Gregg's Brigade, moved to about six miles north of Richmond, where the Light Division was formed under Major-General A. P. Hill, the Brigade and Battery being a part of it. Remained in this vicinity and at Friend's farm on the Chickahominy river, where the battery was engaged in several artillery duels with Federal batteries, one specially severe on the 20th of June, 1862, where several horses were killed and wounded, but fortunately no men were hurt. On the 26th day of June, 1862, the Light Division, with this and other batteries, crossed the Chickahominy swamp and made an attack on the Federals at Mechanicsville, with the Purcell Battery in front, the Crenshaw Battery being immediately in the rear, where they were exposed to a very heavy fire, without the satisfaction of replying. The Light Division continued the advance the next morning with the battery in the same position. In the mean time our forces in front had flanked the fortifications of the enemy, and forced them to evacuate and beat a hasty retreat. The Crenshaw Battery was hurried to the front to take part in the attack on Gaines' Mill; it went into battery in an open field just in rear of the Gaines house, where [277] it fought for several hours a large force of artillery and infantry strongly entrenched, losing one sergeant and many men and horses, and having the guns (the axle of one broken) and caissons badly damaged, it held its position on the field until the ammunition was exhausted, when it was ordered to retire. As soon, however, as the ammunition chests could be refilled, the battery was again ordered back to the same position it had occupied, where it remained under a very hot artillery and infantry fire until nearly sundown, when ordered to retire, Marmaduke Johnson's battery taking its place. The battery went into action with about eighty or ninety men, and came out after a six hours fight with one killed and eight wounded. Sergeant Sydney Strother was mortally wounded, and died the next day, and was buried by the battery on Sunday, June 29th, in Hollywood Cemetery. In this action three guns were disabled, about twenty-five horses killed and wounded, three caissons damaged, and harness very much injured. The next morning the battery was ordered forward to join the division. Captain Crenshaw sent word that he could only bring three pieces. General Gregg's reply was: ‘Bring them along; they are as good as six of the enemy's.’ When the battery reached the brigade, Major-General A. P. Hill ordered it to go to Richmond and refit. Captain Crenshaw insisted, with the wish of General Gregg, that it should be allowed to go with the brigade, but General Hill said: ‘No! I have plenty of artillery, and you deserve to be sent to the rear, and go you shall.’ And go it did. On July 3d, after being nicely refitted, the battery started to rejoin General A. P. Hill's Light Division, which, with the rest of the army, was driving McClellan towards the Federal gunboats on James river. The battery was then assigned to Maj. R. Lindsay Walker's Battalion of Light Artillery, and the scene of operations having shifted to Northern Virginia, we were soon on the road to Culpeper, and on the 9th of August, 1862, when Jackson came up with Pope at Cedar Run, took part in that battle, where ‘Stonewall’ pretty effectually disposed of the man who ‘had no lines of retreat,’ and whose ‘headquarters were in the saddle.’ Pushing on to Warrenton Springs, on the 24th of August we took part in a furious artillery fight, preliminary to Jackson's move around Pope's army, which was soon accomplished, when the battery [278] struck General Taylor's Federal brigade (which had come from Alexandria unsupported to capture what was supposed to be a raiding party of Stuart's cavalry) at Manassas Junction on the 27th of August. The battery, which was put in position by General J. E. B. Stuart in person, disposed of Taylor in short order without the aid of infantry or cavalry, Stuart's cavalry (which had gotten in their rear), capturing nearly all of the brigade we failed to kill or wound. Having loaded down the gun carriages and caissons with the plunder we had captured, Captain Crenshaw directed the head of the battery to move out into the road leading to the old Manassas battlefield, which we reached the 27th of August, and here, on the 28th, 29th, and 30th was fought
