Miles O. Sherrill: A Soldier's Story: Prison Life and Other Incidents in the War of 1861-1865

for two or three days without any further attention to the wound, and the result was the flies "blowed" the amputated limb, and when I reached Alexandria City, some days later, the nurse who dressed the wound found that I was being eat up by the vermin. Just here I will state that on the last day spent at the field hospital there was a great rush in gathering us up in ambulances. Under great excitement, I said to the doctor who was supervising the movement: "Doctor, what is the matter?" He replied that "Burnside was falling back to get a better position." I had been in the army long enough to know that was an evasive answer. The fact was that our troops were driving Burnside back, and the Federals were not willing to lose any of their prisoners though maimed for life. The roads from this place were cut to pieces by the artillery and wagon trains of the Union army going to the front. Those of us who were badly wounded cried for mercy. No mercy came until we reached the boat-landing, where we (those living) were transferred from ambulance to the boat. I do not know how many died en route from the battlefield to the boat-landing. I do know that Charles P. Powell, Adjutant of the Twenty-third North Carolina Regiment, who had lost his leg just as I had, died on this trip, and they stopped on the roadside and covered him up. This young man Powell was from Richmond County, N. C. He was a private soldier at Malvern Hill, July, 1862. When in line of battle, in front of the artillery, a shell fell in the ranks. The men could not leave the line of battle. There lay the shell, sputtering, ready to explode. Young Powell sprang up, grappled the shell and "soused" it into a pool of water near by. What a risk was that! Yet that heroic act may have saved the lives of several men. Later that day he was wounded, and again at the battle of Gettysburg in July, 1863, and died as above stated. On page 189 of Volume II, North Carolina Regimental Histories, it is stated that C. P. Powell, Adjutant, was killed on the 9th of May, 1864, whereas the truth is he was shot on the 9th and his leg was