Just as we reached the stopping point I was in the act of firing, when a ball struck my left hand between the first and second knuckles. It passed entirely through my hand and struck the trigger guard, knocking the gun violently against my head, and I thought for the moment that I had been struck by a cannon ball. I was practically unconscious for a few moments; and when my senses returned, I was lying on the ground, very sick, my head roaring like a freight train, and the wound in my hand bleeding profusely. Our battle line was flattened out on the ground within fifty yards of the fort. Quite a number in my immediate location had been wounded, and one poor fellow within a few feet of me was moaning pitifully, when a bullet struck him in the center of the forehead and killed him instantly. When I saw this, I told the boys that as I could not fight I was going out of the danger zone. They thought the risk of making the run in full view would be greater than to remain in the line; but I did not like the idea of lying there helpless in a veritable slaughter pen, so I took the chance, and evidently outran the bullets, as I got back through that awful open field without being hit. Just as I thought I was out of danger, I heard a shell coming, as it seemed, on a bee line for me. To dodge it I flattened myself on the ground; and as I looked up, I saw that the shell was fully a hundred feet above the ground. It exploded about a half mile from where I lay. I think that was the last shot from the fort, as it was surrendered in a few minutes. I chanced to meet Col. D. C. Kelly, our commander, and he gave me a drink of water and bandaged my wound with a napkin. I then went to the field hospital, where the surgeon dressed my wound and gave me something to quiet my nerves. When night came, I slept; and in the morning that followed I learned that a number of my comrades had gone away on the long and silent march beyond the gates of eternity. After being wounded, I was sent south with other disabled soldiers. We had also about 5,000 prisoners captured at Athens and Sulphur Trestle. I rode my own horse to Cherokee, Ala., where the wounded were separated from the prisoners and guards. At Cherokee we were given a temporary train of cars, in which the wounded were transported to Okolona, Miss. On this trip, by the merest chance, I met a former slave of my father acting as porter on our train. He was a practical barber and a general handy man. His interest in me was intensified when he saw my condition, and he took the tenderest care of me until I was able to leave. After the war was over and this former slave and I were both citizens of Corinth again, with earnings of my own I bought him a good barber’s outfit and set him up in business. It is a regrettable fact that the world, with its garbled histories and its false legends of violence, will never understand the true relation between the master and the slave of the old South.