This text is part of:
Table of Contents:
[99]
killed.
While posting this brigade, the left of my own brigade was concealed from my view, and as soon as I had given Colonel Thomas his instructions, I rode to see what was the condition of things on that part of the line.
On getting to where I could see, I discovered that it had given way, and the men of several regiments were retiring rapidly to the rear, while a portion of the enemy had crossed the little stream in front of where my left had been.
The only thing now standing, as far as I could see, was Thomas' brigade on my right, the 12th Georgia, four companies of the 52nd Virginia, and part of the 58th Virginia.
It was a most critical state of things, and I saw that the day would probably be lost, unless I could hold the position I still occupied.
I could not, therefore, go to rally my retreating men, but sent my Assistant Adjutant General, Major Samuel Hale, to rally them and bring them back, while I rode to the rest of my troops and directed their commanders to hold on to their positions at all hazards.
On my giving the directions to Captain Brown of the 12th Georgia, he replied: “General, my ammunition is nearly out, don't you think we had better charge them?”
I could not admit the prudence of the proposition at that time, but I fully appreciated its gallantry.
This brave old man was then 65 years old, and had a son, an officer, in his company.
The position was held until other troops were brought up and the greater part of the retreating men rallied, and the day was thus prevented from being lost.
The enemy had penetrated into the woods on my left, and the brigades of Jackson's division there posted had been driven back, after a desperate conflict.
The left of the line had thus given way, and the enemy had got possession of the woods, from which he had poured a galling fire into the rear of my regiments on the flank, which had been thrown into confusion, and compelled to retire in some disorder.
Colonel Walker of the 13th Virginia had withdrawn his own regiment and part of the 31st Virginia in good order, after they had been
Scanned printed text.
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.