Our regiment was send from Wytheville to the region of Kanawha, West Virginia and spent the summer and fall in campaigning. Gen. Floyd with his command was then ordered to Bowling Green, Kentucky and then to Fort Donaldson on the Cumberland River. In this battle, I was severely wounded by a shot through the body while leading my men in the fight. I was sent away during the battle by steamboat to Nashville, Tennessee. The boat was crowded with the wounded. A soldier in the struggle of death fell across my body and died there. He laid on me for a long time for there was no to remove him and I was too weak from the loss of blood to do it. The regiment did not surrendered, but fought their way out. They marched in the direction of Murphysboro, Tennessee and made their way back to Virginia.
I finally recovered sufficiently to rejoin my regiment and in reorganizing my of our regiment in June 1862, Col.
Pough of Newburn, Virginia became the Colonel and I was elected Major. The regiment was then placed under the command of Gen. Loring and sent back to West Virginia.
In the fall, we were placed under Gen. Roger A. Pryor. On the 30th day of January 1863, Col. Pough was killed. Then Lieut. Col. Vandervester and myself were promoted. He to Col. and I to Lieut. Col. We were then transferred to Northern Virginia on the Pappahanock which become known as the 2nd Division of Gen. Stonewall Jackson. Soon after this, Col. Vandervester was retired from the regiment. I was left in command of the regiment as Colonel and I continued in command, serving Gen. Jackson until he was killed and with Gen. Robert E. Lee until the regiment was destroyed at the Battle of Spottsylvania, and I continue serving with Lee until his surrender.
I also received a bad wound across the head by a sword in a bayonet charge at Chancellorsville. I was completely surrounded by the Federals in hand to hand fight and would have been killed had not one of my men threw himself between us and struck the man
as the blow fell. I fell unconscious and the Federals threw me in the ditch face down to be covered up.
The Sisters of Charity who were picking up the wounded noticed that I was a Confederate officer and turned me over and found I was breathing. The Federals were occupying the Chancellor’s house and I was sent to Gen. Hooker’s headquarters. This was late Saturday evening and I spent the remainder of the night on top of the piano in the parlor without any medical attention. I was there on Sunday morning when Gen. Hooker was though to have been killed by a shot from our cannon staking a column of the portico against which he was leaning in the second story of the house. I escaped from the house into the woods back of the house intending to make my way back to my regiment but that same evening was recaptured by the Federals and was send on finally to Cliffburn barracks near Washington and soon after to the Old Capitol Prison in the city. I was then exchanged and returned to my regiment just in time to take up the line of march to Gettysburg. Many of the wounded were burned in the Chancellor’s house. At the time I was supposed to have perished n the house and Richmond papers of the day published a very flattering article concerning me and supposed my tragic end.
I fought and took a very active part in the following battles, Bull Run, Cotton Mountain, Big Sewell Mountain, Fort Donaldson, Fayetteville, West Virginia, Frazier’s Farm, Battle of Winchester, Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, Wilderness, Spottsylvania, Manassas, Siege of Petersburg, Fall of Richmond,
Boonesboro, Malvern Hill, Gains Mill, and many others of lesser note. I served from the beginning of the war until I surrendered with Gen. Lee at Appomattox.
I am now in my 78 year but hope to attend a Confederate Reunion at Richmond, Virginia before I am called home to my reward. My heart beats with the gratitude for the honor you ladies of the Salyer-Lee Chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy have conferred upon me by naming the Chapter after me and the Great Lee.
(Signed) Col. L.H.N. Salyer
I was mustered in as a Captain of a Company of 181 men of Wise County, Virginia, on the 3rd day of June 1861. This company and others were organized into a regiment, at Wytheville, Virginia. My company being known as Company H and the regiment being known as the 50th Virginia Regiment, Infantry. This regiment was then placed under the command of Gen. John B. Floyd, with A. B. Reynolds as the first Colonel.
July the 16th, 1912
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