Again the old man wheeled and was gone. Again he rode into the black night and the blacker smoke of battle. General Adams's brigade was in Walthall's division. As the aged courier rode up, Adams was just charging. Again the old man was swept away with the charge. They struck the breastworks where Stile's and Casement's brigades lay on the extreme left of the federal army. "Their officers showed heroic examples and self-sacrifice," wrote General Cox in his official report, "riding up to our lines in advance of their men, cheering them on. One officer, Adams, was shot down upon the parapet itself, his horse falling across the breastworks." Casement himself, touched by the splendor of his ride, had cotton brought from the old gin house and placed under the dying soldier's head. "You are too brave a man to die," said Casement tenderly; "I wish that I could save you." "'Tis the fate of a soldier to die for his country," smiled the dying soldier. Then he passed away. It was a half hour before the old man reached Hood's headquarters again, his black horse wet with sweat. "General Adams lies in front of the breastworks--dead! His horse half over it--dead"--was all he said. Hood turned pale. His eyes flashed with indignant grief. "Then tell General Gist," he exclaimed. The old man vanished again and rode once more into the smoke and the night. Gist's brigade led the front line of Brown's division, Cheatham's corps. It was on the left, fronting Strickland's and Moore's, on the breastworks. The Twenty-fourth South Carolina Infantry was in front of the charging lines. "In passing from the left to the right of the regiment," writes Colonel Ellison Capers commanding the South Carolina regiment above named, "the General (Gist) waved his hat to us, expressed his pride and confidence in the Twenty-fourth and rode away in the smoke of battle never more to be seen by the men he had commanded on so many fields. His horse was shot, and, dismounting, he was leading the right of the brigade when he fell, pierced through the heart. On pressed the charging lines of the brigade, driving the advance force of the enemy pell-mell into a locust abatis where many were captured and sent to the rear; others were wounded by the fire of their own men. This abatis was a formidable and fearful obstruction. The entire brigade was arrested by it. But Gist's and Gordon's brigade charged on and reached the ditch, mounted the works and met the enemy in close combat. The colors of the Twenty-fourth were planted and defended on the parapet, and the enemy retired in our front some distance, but soon rallied and came back in turn to charge us. He never succeeded in retaking the line we held. Torn and exhausted, deprived of every general officer and nearly every field officer, the division had only strength enough left to hold its position."