Today we celebrate
. . . the 150th anniversary of the day the guy on the left side of the picture probably should have ducked.
From Johnston, Narrative of Military Operations, pp. 138-40.
About seven o’clock I received a slight wound in the right shoulder from a musket-shot, and, a few moments after, was unhorsed by a heavy fragment of shell which struck my breast. Those around had me borne from the field in an ambulance; not, however, before the President, who was with General Lee, not far in the rear, had heard of the accident and visited me, manifesting great concern, as he continued to do until I was out of danger. The firing ceased, terminated by darkness only, before I had been carried a mile from the field. As next in rank, Major-General G.W. Smith succeeded in command of the army. . . . About noon General Lee was assigned to the command of the Army of Northern Virginia, by the President.
Here’s Johnston’s monument at Bentonville, which I believe captures the moment in the battle when he was getting ready to rock some Skynyrd.
(Hat tip to Charles Bowery.)