[442] with his brigade, was coming into line of battle, facing Blackburn's Ford. His position was well chosen, and I turned my attention to the placing of Davies' brigade and the batteries. A part of Davies' command was placed in echellon of regiments, behind fences, in support of Richardson; another portion in reserve, in support of Hunt's and Titball's batteries. After completing these arrangements, I returned to Blenker's brigade, now near a mile from Centreville heights, took a regiment to cover Green's battery, and then returned to the heights. When I arrived there just before dusk, I found all my previous arrangements of defence had been changed nor could I ascertain who had ordered it, for Gen. McDowell was not on the field. Col. Richardson was the first person I spoke to after passing Capt. Fry; he was leading his regiment into line of battle on the crest of the hill, and directly in the way of the batteries in rear. It was here the conversation between the Colonel and myself took place which he alludes to in his report. General McDowell just afterward came on to the field, and I appealed earnestly to him to permit me to command my division, and protested against the faulty disposition of the troops to resist an attack. He replied by taking command himself and relieving me. Col. Richardson states a conversation with Lieutenant-Colonel Stevens, of his command. I never saw Colonel Stevens to my knowledge. I never gave him, or any one, the order to deploy his column: the order must have emanated from some one else, and hence my misfortune; for on his impression that I was drunk, those not immediately connected with me rung it over the field, without inquiry or investigation. This is all that is proper for me to say at this time, as I have called for a court to investigate the whole transaction. Those who have read Richardson's report will confer a favor to compare this statement with it; the discrepancies are glaring, the errors by deductions apparent.L. S. miles, Colonel Second Infantry.
This text is part of:
Table of Contents:
Van Nostrand. New York, New York. 1862.
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.