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noblest character, he gathered about him the largest personal and political following.
An ardent adherent and lover of the Federal government and Union of the States up to the date of President Lincoln's proclamation calling for troops, he then espoused the cause of the South, and the influence of his action stimulated many thousands of Tennesseeans to abandon all allegiance to the Washington government.
No officer of the brigade reported its action on the battlefield or furnished lists of casualties.
Capt. J. H. Moore, Seventh Tennessee, is authority for the statement that ‘Adjt. G. A. Howard and eight out of the ten company commanders and half of the privates of the Seventh were killed or wounded.’
The losses were heavy in the First and Fourteenth. Dr. John Martin, assistant surgeon of the Fourteenth, was killed on the field while in the act of giving succor to a wounded man of his regiment.
A short time before the battles of Mechanicsville and Gaines' Mill, Brig.-Gen. J. J. Archer was assigned to the command of the Tennessee brigade which became part of A. P. Hill's division.
This organization was maintained to the end. General Archer was distinguished at Seven Pines as colonel of the Fifth Texas, and there he won his promotion.
In referring to his part in the battle which preceded the great fights around Richmond, Gen. A. P. Hill said it was never contemplated that his division alone should receive the shock of battle at Mechanicsville, but such was the case, the only assistance received being from the division commanded by Brigadier-General Ripley.
It was the intention of General Lee to attack the Federal right in the early morning of the 26th of June. Gen. Stonewall Jackson was expected to be in position at the dawn of day, but receiving no intelligence from him at 3 o'clock p. m. General Hill determined, in pursuance of General Lee's original orders, to cross the Chickahominy with a brigade,
Atlanta, Ga. 1899.
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