[367]
continued, and Lee's indefatigable attention to the details of the various commands was of much benefit to the public service.
In the meantime disasters, confusion, and disagreement among the commands in western Virginia made it necessary to send there an officer of higher rank than any then on duty in that section.
The service was disagreeable, toilsome, and in no wise promising to give distinction to a commander.
Passing by all reference to others, suffice it to say that at last Lee was asked to go, and, not counting the cost, he unhesitatingly prepared to start.
By concentrating the troops, and by a judicious selection of the position he compelled the enemy finally to retreat.
There is an incident in this campaign which has never been reported, save as it was orally given to me by General Lee, with a request that I should take no official notice of it. A strong division of the enemy was reported to be encamped in a valley, which one of the colonels said he had found by reconnoissance could readily be approached on one side, and he proposed with his regiment to surprise and attack.
General Lee accepted his proposition, but told him that he himself would, in the meantime, with several regiments, ascend the mountain that overlooked the valley on the other side, and at dawn of day, on a morning fixed, the Colonel was to make his assault.
His firing was to be the signal for a joint attack from three directions.
During the night Lee made a toilsome ascent of the mountain and was in position at the time agreed upon.
The valley was covered by a dense fog. Not hearing the signal, he went by a winding path down the side of the mountain and saw the enemy preparing breakfast and otherwise so engaged as to indicate that they were entirely ignorant of any danger.
Lee returned to his own command, told them what he had seen, and though the expected signal had not been given by which the attacking regiment and another detachment were to engage in the assault, he proposed that the regiments then with him should surprise the camp, which he believed, under the circumstances, might successfuly be done.
The colonels went to consult their men, and returned to inform that they were so cold, wet, and hungry, as to be unfit for the enterprise.
The fog was then lifting, and it was necessary to attack immediately or to withdraw before being discovered by the much larger force in the valley.
Lee therefore withdrew his small command and safely conducted them to his encampment.
The colonel who was to give the signal for the joint attack, misapprehending the purpose, reported that when he arrived upon the
Hide browse bar Your current position in the text is marked in blue. Click anywhere in the line to jump to another position:
chapter:
chapter 1.1
Confederate surgeons.
The race problem in the
South
—Was the
Fifteenth
Amendment a mistake?
A word with the critics.
A list of Confederate officers, prisoners, who were held by Federal authority on
Morris Island, S. C.
, under Confederate fire from
September
7th
to
October
21st
,
1864
.
Memoir of
Gen.
C.
R.
Wheat
, commander of the
Louisiana
Tiger Battalion
The last words of
Major
Wheat
.
The siege and evacuation of
Savannah, Georgia
, in
December
,
1864
.
Annual Reunion of the
Association
of the
Army of Northern Virginia
.
Life, services and character of
Jefferson
Davis
.
The
Twelfth Georgia Infantry
.
The Monument to
General
Robert
E.
Lee
.
Incidents of the parade.
chapter 1.14
Testimonials from visiting soldiers.
Robert
Edward
Lee
.
Letters of
R.
E.
Lee
.
At Lee
's tomb.
Lee
's Birthday: eminent men of the
United States
send sentiments for the day—ministers, soldiers, statesmen and scholars each bring an offering.
Lee
as an educator.
chapter 1.21
Robert
E.
Lee
.
Itinerary of the
Fourth Virginia cavalry
.
March
27th
-
April
9th
,
1865
.
Prisoners of the civil war.
Andersonville prison
.
chapter 1.26
The unveiling. [
Richmond Dispatch
,
June
10
,
1890
.]
Valuable war relic.
Casualties in the old
First
at
Gettysburg
:
two
out of every
three
men who were carried into the charge shot down.
Williamsburg
.
Lee
's Lieutenants.
Development of the free soil idea in the
United States
.
Index.
This text is part of:
Table of Contents:
A list of Confederate officers, prisoners, who were held by Federal authority on
Morris Island, S. C.
, under Confederate fire from
September
7th
to
October
21st
,
1864
.
Life, services and character of
Jefferson
Davis
.
Secession preached and threatened in all sections—the
Northern
record for it and against extension of the
Union
.
The
Twelfth Georgia Infantry
.
chapter 1.14
Lee
's Birthday: eminent men of the
United States
send sentiments for the day—ministers, soldiers, statesmen and scholars each bring an offering.
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.
show
Browse Bar
hide
Places (automatically extracted)
View a map of the most frequently mentioned places in this document.
Sort places
alphabetically,
as they appear on the page,
by frequency
Click on a place to search for it in this document.
West Virginia (West Virginia, United States) (1)Click on a place to search for it in this document.
Download Pleiades ancient places geospacial dataset for this text.
hide
People (automatically extracted)
Sort people
alphabetically,
as they appear on the page,
by frequency
Click on a person to search for him/her in this document.
R. E. Lee (6)Click on a person to search for him/her in this document.
hide
Search
hide
Display Preferences