[469]
found him looking on with his usual coolness.
He soon started towards the crossing, and on our way met the two Parrotts I have mentioned above, leaving the field.
The General was very much displeased at first, but Colonel Rosser made matters all right, by telling him that it was useless to stay there, a great many horses having been killed, men wounded, and ammunition nearly exhausted.
Other portions of
Lieutenant Price's letter show how warm an affection he cherished for his old comrades of the Howitzer Battalion, and how impossible it would have been for him to misrepresent their conduct or to ascribe to any other the credit which was due to them.
Sergeant Pleasants says, in another part of his letter:
I believe our dear old General, had he lived and had he known, would have corrected the error in his report.
Now, any error in
General Lee's report must have arisen from wrong information furnished by his subordinate commanders, and in this case the information must have come from
General Stuart.
But the latter is relieved from this charge by the fact that he made no report of the
battle of Fredericksburg.
Moreover there is abundant evidence to show that
Major Pelham's fight was made under the very eyes of
Generals Lee and
Jackson, who were both present on the extreme right of the
Confederate line at that time.
General Lee writes as an eye-witness, when he says:
‘As soon as the advance of the enemy was discovered through the fog,
General Stuart, with his accustomed promptness, moved up a section of his Horse Artillery, which opened with effect upon his flank and drew upon the gallant
Pelham a heavy fire, which he sustained unflichingly for about two hours.’
Aside from all this, there is one sentence in
Sergeant Pleasants's letter, which, at once and conclusively, shows that he has made a mistake.
He says that when his gun was detached to follow
General Stuart and
Colonel Rosser, ‘
We were advanced by half battery to the front, firing at our “ level best” as we went forward.’
That is, his gun was not detached until the engagement of the artillery had become general along the line.
Now,
Channing Price says that where
Pelham was engaged with
Henry's Napoleon, ‘
not a gun on our long line, from Fredericksburg to Hamilton's Crossing, had yet ’
