Rebellion Record: a Diary of American Events: Documents and Narratives, Volume 9.
Frank Moore, Ed.

[615]

Which, taken in connection with the small number of missing, shows how dearly, yet how gloriously, this success was obtained.

It is with sincere regret that I have to state my Adjutant-General, Major T. S. McIntosh, was killed dead, shot through the heart, while carrying out one of my orders. The country has lost in him as brave and gallant an officer and gentleman as any that survives him.

My Inspector-General, Major Goggin, was with me during the day, carrying orders and superintending their execution, in the performance of which duties he exhibited great daring, and cool, sound judgment.

To Captain King and Lieutenant Tucker, Aids-de-camp, and Captain Costin, signal officer, Lieutenant Campbell, of the engineers, and Lieutenant Edwards, ordnance officer, I am indebted for their zeal and activity. Their gallantry was conspicuous in the performance of their duties.

Colonel Henry Coulter Cabell, chief of artillery, who had been absent, sick, joined me on the field, and remained during the rest of the engagement.

I enclose reports of brigade commanders, and call attention to their notices of individual merit.

Very respectfully,

Captain: In accordance with instructions from the headquarters of the corps, I submit the following report of the operations of this division since the movement from the neighborhood of Gordonsville, northward, in the month of August last, until it reached Bunker Hill, in September:

This report, however, is necessarily defective in regard to all the other brigades of the division except my own, as there were other division commanders until after the commencement of the battle of Sharpsburg, on the seventeenth of September, Major-General Ewell having commanded until the night of the twenty-eighth of August, when he was wounded in the action near Groveton, and Brigadier-General Lawton having command from that time until he was wounded at the battle of Sharpsburg. It is impossible to supply the necessary information in regard to the particular parts taken by Lawton's and Trimble's brigades in the several actions commencing with the affairs of Hazel River, on the twenty-second, and Bristoe and Manassas Junction, on the twenty-seventh of August, and ending with the battle of Sharpsburg, except as to the part taken by Trimble's brigade at Sharpsburg, as General Lawton, who commanded his brigade until the twenty-ninth of August, is absent in Georgia, wounded, and Colonel Douglas, who commanded the brigade from the twenty-ninth of August to the seventeenth of September, was killed at Sharpsburg on that day, and General Trimble, who commanded his brigade until the 29th August, is absent, wounded, and Captain Brown, of the twelfth Georgia regiment, who succeeded him in the command, was killed at Ox Hill, near Chantilly, on the first of September. There is the same difficulty in regard to Hays's brigade as to the part taken by it on the thirtieth of August, at Manassas, and at Ox Hill, on the first of September, as Colonel Strong, who commanded on these occasions, was killed at Sharpsburg.

This report, therefore, will not contain particular details of the operations of any brigade but my own, in most of the actions in which the division was engaged during the time covered by it.

march prom vicinity of Gordonsville to the Rappahannock.

On the sixteenth of August, the division moved from Liberty Mills, in Orange County, to Mountain Run, in the same county, near Clarke's Mountain, below Rapidan Station, where it remained until the twentieth, when it crossed the Rapidan at Cunningham's Ford, and bivouacked near Stevensburg, in Culpeper. On the next day it moved past Brandy Station, and bivouacked near St. James's Church, on the road toward a ford on the Rappahannock, above the railroad station and below the mouth of Hazel River.

The next day it moved in the direction of that ford, and, on arriving there, the enemy being in position on the opposite bank to dispute the passage, the division was moved to the left, Lawton's brigade leading, crossing Hazel River at a mill, and then moving in the direction of a ford on the Rappahannock, above the mouth of Hazel River, where the enemy was also found in force, and the division was then again moved to the left in the direction of the ford at Warrenton Springs, by a route through fields and woods, so as not to be exposed to view. At the two fords above mentioned, and in moving therefrom, the division was exposed to shells fired from the enemy's batteries, and sustained slight loss.

In moving to the left across Hazel River, General Trimble, with his brigade, was left behind to observe the enemy, and had a fight with a body of the enemy which had crossed from the north bank of the Rappahannock, and was threatening the trains, and succeeded in driving it back across the river; but I am unable to give the particulars of this affair.

crossing of the Rappahannock, and affair at Warrenton Springs, August 23D.

The remainder of the division proceeded to the vicinity of the Warrenton Springs, on the southern bank, and late in the afternoon, the Thirteenth Georgia regiment, of Lawton's brigade, under Colonel Douglas, was crossed at the Springs, capturing a few cavalrymen on picket at that place. Brown's and Dement's batteries, of four guns each, were also crossed over at this point.