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crowd in the covered way, and in putting some of them in position in the second line; some were in the first.
I left General Potter in the covered way.
I would like to give more extracts from the sworn and other statements of our adversaries as to what was done and omitted to be done on this memorable day, which marked an event altogether exceptional in the history of the war; but I fear that I have already drawn from these sources of information to the point of prolixity.
Although all matters of controversy would in this address gladly have been avoided, I cannot pass unnoticed a remarkable paragraph in
Colonel Alfred Roman's work, ‘The Military Operations of
General Beauregard.’
At page 267, after mentioning
General Meade's order to
General Burnside to withdraw his troops, given at 9:45 A. M., and the orders given to
General Hancock, at 9:25 and to
General Warren at 9:45, ‘to suspend all offensive operations,’
Colonel Roman, basing his statement upon statements made by
General Bushrod Johnson and
Colonel F. W. McMaster,
1 says:
Such was the situation—the Federals unable to advance and fearing to retreat-when, at 10 o'clock, General Mahone arrived with a part of his men, who lay down in the shallow ravine, to the rear of Elliott's salient, held by the force under Colonel Smith, there to await the remainder of the division.
But a movement having occurred among the Federals which seemed to menace an advance, General Mahone threw forward his brigade, with the Sixty-first North Carolina, of Hoke's division, which had now also come up. The Twenty-fifth and Forty-ninth North Carolina, and the Twenty-sixth and part of the Seventeenth South Carolina, all under Smith, which were formed on Mahone's left, likewise formed in the counter-movement, and three-fourths of the gorge-line were carried with part of the trench on the left of the Crater occupied by the Federals.
Many of the latter, white and black, abandoned the breach and fled to their lines, under a scourging flank fire from Wise's brigade.