Joseph T. Derry , A. M. , Author of School History of the United States; Story of the Confederate War, etc., Confederate Military History, a library of Confederate States Military History: Volume 6, Georgia
Clement Anselm Evans, Ed.

---

[447] Virginia he commanded a division including his own and Anderson's brigades, and he was a participant in the battle of Dam No. 1. This division was commanded by D. R. Jones in the Seven Days campaign, and Toombs and his gallant brigade were distinguished in the combats at Garnett's farm and Malvern hill. In the Second Manassas campaign he led his men in the fight at Thoroughfare gap, and throughout the battles which followed. It was in this campaign that he was put under arrest temporarily by General Longstreet. As the latter relates the story, the corps commander having, in Toombs' absence, ordered the brigade to guard a ford on the Rapidan, the impetuous brigadier-general, on his return from a good dinner with a Virginia friend, found his troops, and ordered them back to their former position. He had a great dislike for the systematic and apparently slow methods of the West Pointers, and after this incident Longstreet ordered him to remain at Gordonsville. But a letter of explanation soon reached the superior officer, and Toombs was promptly ordered back on duty. As Longstreet says: ‘When he rode up and took command of his brigade there was wild enthusiasm, and everything being ready, an exultant shout was sent up, and the men sprang to the charge. I had no more trouble with Toombs.’ At Antietam the brigade under his command won fame by the intrepid defense of the lower bridge against Burnside, winning the warm approval of General Longstreet in his official report. Subsequently he resigned his commission, and his brigade, in which the Twentieth regiment had now been substituted for the First, came under the command of General Benning. In 1864 he was adjutant and inspector-general of the Georgia division of State troops, under Gen. G. W. Smith, and in this capacity he participated in the defense of the Chattahoochee line, and of the cities of Atlanta and Macon. It is said that at the close of the war the four men the Washington government, or a part of it, most desired to