Did General L. A. Armistead fight on the Federal side at first Manassas?
In our last issue we pronounced
General Doubbleday's statement in reference to this gallant soldier “without the shadow of foundation,” and we are collecting the most conclusive proofs, which we will hereafter submit.
Meantime we refer the reader to
Colonel Preston Johnston's “Life of
Albert Sidney Johnston” (pp. 279, 280, 282, and 291), where it is shown that
Armistead was in Califonia when the war broke out — that he promptly resigned his commission as
Major in the United States army--that he joined
General Albert Sidney Johnston and his party in their perilous overland journey to
Texas--that he bore his full share of the hardships and dangers which those noble patriots encountered in order to reach the
Confederacy and tender their swords to the land that gave them birth — and that having left
Los Angeles on the 16th of June, 1861, and arrived at
Mesilla on the 28th of July, it was
as much a physical impossibility that Armistead could have been at Manassas on the 21st of July, as it was a moral impossibility that a man of his sentiments and his high sense [of honor, could have drawn his sword against his native Virginia.
