previous next

[42] a movement, and as one of the enemy's batteries on Cemetery Hill was doing us some damage, I ordered the brigade back a few yards that the left might take shelter behind the stone fence. We remained in this position that night, and next day, before the heavy artillery-firing commenced, I ordered the Thirty-third and Eighteenth regiments to the left of Colonel Garnett's battalion of artillery, that they might be better sheltered, and at the same time be out of the enemy's line of fire. In the afternoon I was ordered by General Pender to take possession of the road in my front with my skirmishers, if possible. Fresh men were thrown forward, and the whole, under Major 0. N. Brown, of the Thirty-seventh, executed the order very handsomely, driving the enemy's skirmishers and occupying the road along our entire front. With the exception of the gallantry displayed by our skirmishers, nothing of interest occurred in my command on the second day.

After a portion of the army on our right (I suppose they were some of Anderson's troops,) had driven the enemy some distance, General Pender rode from the left of my line to the right of his division. About sunset I was informed by Captain Norwood, of General Thomas' staff, that General Pender had been wounded, and that I must take command of the division and advance, if I saw a good opportunity for doing so. At that time the firing on the right was very desultory — the heavy fighting having ended.

I was soon afterwards informed by Major Whiting, of General Rodes' staff, that General Rodes would advance at dark, and that he wished me to protect his flank. I did not give him a definite answer then as I had sent you to notify General Hill of General Pender's fall, and to receive instructions. On being notified, however, by General Ewell, that his whole command would move on the enemy's position that night, commencing with Johnson's division on the left, I told Major Whiting that I would act without awaiting instructions from General Hill. I at once ordered forward Thomas' brigade and McGowan's, (then commanded by Col. Perrin,) to form an obtuse angle with Ramseur's brigade, which was the right of Rodes' first line, leaving an interval of one hundred paces. I, at the same time, determined to support these two brigades with Scales' and my own, commanded respectively by Colonels Lowrance and Avery, should there be any occasion for it. I subsequently received orders from General Hill, through Capt.


Creative Commons License
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.

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.
Cemetery Hill (Pennsylvania, United States) (1)

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.
Pender (4)
Rodes (3)
A. P. Hill (3)
W. D. Whiting (2)
Thomas (2)
Alfred M. Scales (1)
Ramseur (1)
Perrin (1)
Norwood (1)
McGowan (1)
Lowrance (1)
Andrew Johnson (1)
Garnett (1)
Ewell (1)
N. Brown (1)
Avery (1)
G. T. Anderson (1)
hide Display Preferences
Greek Display:
Arabic Display:
View by Default:
Browse Bar: