HOW A BOY WON HIS SPURS AT ANTIETAM.
FROM SKETCH BY MRS. B. A. C. EMERSON, DENVER, COLO.
Early in the morning of the battle of
Antietam Colonel Ransom's brigade of North Carolina regiments was sent to the aid of Stonewall Jackson's hard-pressed lines. In this brigade, in the 35th
North Carolina, was William S. Hood, the boy who
won his spurs on that day. The incidents are
detailed by Capt. W. H. S. Burgwyn, of the 35th:
"During a lull in the battle General Jackson, with Gen. J. E. B. Stuart, visited our lines, which were in the famous 'West Woods.' General
Jackson had on an old worn uniform, his slouch hat was pulled down over
his eyes, and he was riding Little Sorrel. He rode up to where Colonel Ransom
was standing and said he wanted him to take a battery
that was in sight. Colonel Ransom replied that he
would try if ordered, but was afraid he would fail. Jackson
replied that he had just witnessed his charge upon that battery, and he
thought that if he would try again he could take it. Colonel Ransom said he had
tried it, and when he got on top of the hill he saw
what he thought was the greater part of McClellan's
army behind it. Jackson asked: 'Have you a good climber in your
command?' Colonel Ransom called for volunteers, and Private William S. Hood, of
Company H, jumped up and said he could climb. Jackson picked
out a tall hickory tree and told him to go up it.
Hood pulled off his shoes in a jiffy and went up
like a squirrel.
"When Hood was
near the top, Jackson, sitting
on his horse under the tree, asked him: 'How many
troops are over there?' Hood, uttering an exclamation of amazement, replied:
'Oceans of them.' Jackson sternly said: 'Count the flags, sir!' Hood began, 'One, two, three, four,'
etc., General Jackson repeating after him the numbers until he had counted thirty-nine, when Jackson said: 'That will do; come down.' All this time the enemy's sharpshooters were firing at Hood."
When this sketch
appeared in the newspapers before its publication in the State's history (North Carolina regiments), it
brought a communication from Capt. D. G. Maxwell,
Company H, 35th North Carolina, of Charlotte, which is so creditable to the gallant boy, Private William S. Hood, that it is
incorporated as part of the record of this regiment.
It states:
"In regard to the battle of Sharpsburg there are several additional
incidents I shall relate. When going into action that morning, Colonel Ransom
himself carried the regimental colors, but was not
wounded. His command captured the battery which
they had charged, but were afterwards forced to fall back and take their
original position at the foot of a hill in the woods. Just
here a Yankee officer mounted on a bobtail horse rode up to the abandoned
battery, apparently to view our position, when I suppose one hundred guns were
fired at him. He sat unconcernedly on his horse, when Colonel Ransom cried out:
'Cease firing; don't shoot that brave man.' The Yankee
officer withdrew as deliberately as he came.
"Shortly
thereafter, the firing having ceased in our immediate front, and before Private Hood had
volunteered to climb the tree for General Jackson, Colonel Ransom came and ordered me to
detail the best man in my
company to go forward and ascertain the position
and movements of the enemy. Immediately young Hood
sprang to his feet (we were all lying down) and asked permission to go; and as
he struck a 'turkey trot' across the field with his gun at a trail, I could see a smile
of admiration on the face of the
old Roman as he asked the name of the boy soldier and commanded me to lie down and report
to him on Hood's return.
"Hood was gone
for at least an hour, which was a long time under the circumstances, so long that both Colonel Ransom and I
were uneasy as to his fate. Finally he returned and gave such a satisfactory account of all he had seen that Colonel
Ransom complimented him and ordered him to return to his company. Hood told me
that on the field among the dead
and wounded he found a Federal officer badly
wounded and crying for water. He gave the officer
his canteen. The wounded man offered to give Hood
his gold watch and chain and all the money he had
to carry him within our lines for treatment. Hood told him that it was an
impossibility; but when he encountered the Yankee
pickets he informed them of this officer's condition and proposed to conduct
them to the place where he was lying, which
proposition was readily accepted. The officer was
placed upon a stretcher and carried within the Federal lines. Hood could easily have been captured;
but his magnanimity to this wounded officer gained for him the admiration of the Federal
pickets, who treated him kindly, gave him coffee, and allowed him to return.
"A short time after
Hood's return General Jackson made his request for a man to climb the tree. Hood
again volunteered, as Colonel Burgwyn states, except that he did not 'take off
his shoes in a jiffy,' from the
fact that he had no shoes on his feet, they being so sore that he could
not wear any. He was not only barefooted but ragged and dirty. His condition,
however, was not an exception.
"After our
retreat across the Potomac, Gen.
Robert Ransom left an order with me for
Private Hood to report to him. Soon thereafter we resumed our march toward
Martinsburg, Va. I saw nothing more of Hood until late in
the afternoon, when General Ransom passed
our regiment in a gallop, Hood following him on one
of the General's horses, with spurs
on his bare feet. He lifted his old cap and saluted as he passed. He remained with Gen. Robert Ransom as courier until Col. Matt Ransom
was promoted to brigadier general. General Matt
then took Hood on his staff of couriers.
"William S.
Hood was only sixteen years old when he enlisted. He was a
handsome boy with black eyes, long black
hair, and fair skin—indeed, a noble type of a Southern lad. He wrote a beautiful
hand, and was often detailed to assist in making
out reports, pay rolls, etc. He was a son of A. I.
Hood, of Mecklenburg County."
In the assault on Fort Steadman on March 25, 1865, Gen. Matt
Ransom commanded his own and Wallace's South Carolina Brigade. In his report of this brilliant but disastrous attack General Lee said: "The two
brigades commanded by General Ransom behaved most
handsomely." The 35th lost largely in killed, wounded, and prisoners. Here Hood was killed. General Ransom clothed the body
of the brave boy in a general's
uniform and laid it tenderly in a grave far from the home of his childhood, in old
Mecklenburg County
.JPG)