This is Sunday morning, June 7th and it very vividly, calls my mind back to this day 51 years ago, 1863, when we charged over breastwork at Millican's Bend on the Mississippi River, and engaged in one of the bloodiest fights for about one hour that was ever fought.  We marched all day the day before the battle and lay on our arms during the night within a mile of the battle ground, and jsut as day began to dawn we received orders to prepare for battle and resumed our march to met the enemy, and within a few hundred yards of the enemy we had to concentrate our men and cut through a Boisdac hedge and the enemy began firing on us before we could deploy columns and about fifty of our men fell, but we were only a few minutes in making our way to the levee behind which the enemy was fortified and they proved to be mostly Negroes.  We charged right over on them and within a very short time we completely demolished the entire enemy, killing 750 Negroes while we never lost a man after we got to the levee.  Blood was in the trenches several inches deep in places after the battle.  I was a member of the 17th Texas Volunteer Infantry, Col. R. T. P. Allen was our Colonel and Wash Jones our Lieutenant Colonel.  Though the battle was led by the illustrious, General E. McCullough, who has long since received his reward, not only as a faithful Confederate soldier, but as a faithful Christian soldier of the cross of Christ.  Among the brave Burleson County boys who participated in that famous and hard fought battle were:  B.H. Carroll and his two brothers, Will Ike Heslep, C.C. Harvey, Billy Brymer, T.M. Hunt, B.A. and John Porter, Tom Ridgeway and Jack Allbright, the two latter being killed in the first charge and many others were there who I can't call to mind as I am only quoting from memory.  Now I am only a citizen of Burleson County and my address is Deanville, Texas, and I am writing this synopsis of the battle at the request of some of the old boys who were there and if I have made any misquotations I stand corrected.  I was born and reared in that little historic town, Bastrop, and was the eldest son of Judge Thomas H. Mays, and if any of the dear old 17th see this I would be glad to hear from them, either through the Ledger or the Galveston Semi-Weekly News.    T. F. Mays

Last Update Wednesday, 18-Sep-2024 18:23:50 MDT

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