We take great pleasure in publishing the following detailed account of the incident which occurred with
' gallant Mississippians on the 12th of May, 1864, and to which we briefly alluded in our paper in the January number as being (alike with the scene with the
Dear Sir — I am about to trespass upon your kind attention in a matter which may seem at first entirely personal, but the contrary will appear to you after a full and complete statement of my object and wishes.
You will recollect,
Colonel, that on the morning of the 12th of May, 1864, my brigade (
Mississippi), having double-quicked from the left of our lines, was halted on the
Court-house road, near Spotsylvania Courthouse; that, after a halt at this point of a half hour,
General Lee in person ordered the brigade (I being at the right of the brigade) to an attention, put it on the march, left in front, and himself at the head, moved in the direction of the salient from which the troops of
General Edward Johnson had been driven; that, moving at the quick-step, we were soon under a heavy artillery fire from the batteries of the enemy in front and to our right; that, whilst thus advancing,
General Lee, yourself, myself and staff at the head of the brigade, a twelve pound (ricochet) shot passed just in front of
General Lee, so near as to excite his horse very much, causing him to rear and plunge in such a manner as would have unseated a less accomplished horseman.
The men, seeing the narrow escape of their beloved commander, earnestly urged him to go back, and one or two of them caught hold of the bridle of his horse and turned the animal around.
General Lee then spoke to the men and told them that if they would drive the enemy from the captured works, he would go back, The men responded with a hearty “we will!”
The brigade moved forward to the point of attack, drove the enemy from the captured works and held the position until 4 A. M. of the 13th, resisting effectually the repeated efforts of
Grant's massed forces to dislodge them.
With this statement of facts, which I have no doubt will readily recur to you, I beg to call your attention to an entirely different version of this affair given by
Major John Esten Cooke in his life
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of
General R. E. Lee, pages 397 and 398, in which he gives the credit to troops from another State.
Now, as you were an eye-witness of what did take place, and personally knew what troops were thus engaged, and occupying the position you did upon the staff of
General Lee, I feel that I am warranted in calling upon you for a correction of what may become an error of history.
Publications of this kind, often made upon newspaper reports and rumors not always reliable, work a grave injustice.
I have no doubt if
General Gordon's attention was called to this publication, that hp, with that noble and high sense of honor that has ever marked his conduct, both as a soldier and civilian, would himself make the proper correction, as he wears too many justly earned honors to desire those which properly belong to others.
Personally, I care but little; but for the gallant men whom I had the honor to lead I care a great deal, and I feel that it is imperative upon me to see that justice is done them in the premises.
Almost a similar scene occurred on the 6th of May, 1864, in the
Wilderness, between
General Lee and
Gregg's Texas brigade, and with a great many that has been confounded with the incident at
Spotsylvania.
I trust,
Colonel, if not demanding too great a concession of your valuable time, you will furnish me a statement of the facts in this matter, in accordance with your recollection.
With my best wishes for your health and prosperity,
I am,
Colonel, truly your friend,
My Dear General — Your letter of August 24th was duly received.
I sought a copy of
Major Cooke's life of
General Lee and read therein the myth concerning the battle scene of May 12th, 1864, at Spotsylvania Courthouse.
Major Cooke has evidently confounded (in a distorted way) some incidents of the fight on a portion of
Rodes' front on the afternoon of the 10th of May, when
Gordon and others urged
General Lee to retire from the front, with the great battle of May 12th.
You do right not to permit so gross a misstatement of facts, which robs the brave
Mississippians whom you commanded of their proper meed of glory, to pass unnoticed.
You ask me to relate the incidents of the twelfth of May, connecting
General Lee with your brigade in the bloody battle of that day.
General Rodes had immediate charge of the troops who held the enemy at bay in the angle of our works, which they had captured at dawn, and he may justly be called the hero of the battle at the
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salient.
The enemy, in attempting to press their advantage, massed their troops and made repeated assaults with overwhelming odds on the troops sent to oppose their further progress within our lines.
Rodes sent from time to time urgent messages for more troops.
Brigade after brigade was ordered to his assistance as they could be spared from other portions of the line.
On the receipt of one of these messages from
Rodes,
General Lee sent me to our extreme right, occupied by
General Mahone, to bring up your brigade.
You moved rapidly across the open space in rear of the
Court-house.
When we had reached a point on tile Courthouse road, near
General Lee's position on the line, the brigade was halted for a few minutes.
General Lee rode up alone during this halt, and gave orders that you should move on at once to
General Rodes' assistance; and, as the column moved on, he rode at your side at its head.
We soon came under the fire of the enemy's artillery.
This excited
General Lee's horse, and as he was in the act of rearing, a round shot passed under his belly, very near the
General's. stirrup.
The men of the brigade cried out: “Go back, General!
Go back!
For God's sake, go back!”
and perhaps some made a motion to seize his bridle.
He then said, “If you will promise me to drive those people from our works,
I will go back!”
The men shouted their promise with a will.
General Lee then gave me orders to guide the brigade to
General Rodes.
We found
General Rodes near the famous spring within a few rods of the line of battle held by our exhausted troops.
As the column of Mississippians came up at a double-quick, an aid-de-camp came to
General Rodes with a message from
Ramseur that he could hold out only a few minutes longer unless assistance was at hand.
Your brigade was thrown instantly into the fight, the column being formed into line under a tremendous fire and on very difficult ground.
Never did a brigade go into fiercer battle under greater trials; never did a brigade do its duty more nobly.
The entire salient was not recaptured, but the progress of the enemy was checked, and they were driven into a narrow space in the angle which they had occupied.
The disaster of the morning was retrieved, and our troops held their difficult position under a heavy, unceasing fire during the remainder of the day and the entire night.
They were withdrawn before daylight on the morning of the 13th to the rifle pits constructed under
Gordon's supervision, while the battle was raging a short distance in rear of the old line.
The enemy abandoned the captured salient on the same day as useless to them, or perhaps as a
ruse preparatory to a grand assault on our left, ordered by
General Grant at daylight on the 14th (this we learned from captured copies of his battle orders). His troops, however, failed to come up to the attack.
The day of the salient, which began in disaster to us, did not close without many shattering blows to the attacking column.
Of the incident of the
battle of the Wilderness on the 6th of
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May, in connection with the
Texas brigade (often, as you say, confounded with the incidents of May 12th, related above), I was also an eye-witness; and I believe that few battle incidents recorded in history rise in grandeur above those two occasions when
General Lee went into the charge with the
Texans at the
Wilderness and when he led the Mississippians into
battle at Spotsylvania.
I am, General, very truly, your friend,
It may be well to add that there is really no conflict in the several accounts we have published.
The incident certainly occurred, under somewhat similar circumstances, upon
' Mississippi brigade.
The scene in the Wilderness.
General Lee soon sent a message to
Longstreet to make a night march and bring up his two divisions at daybreak on the 6th.
He himself slept on the field, taking his headquarters a few hundred yards from the line of battle of the day. It was his intention to relieve
Hill's two divisions with
Longstreet's, and throw them farther to the left, to fill up a part of the great unoccupied interval between the
Plank road and
Ewell's right, near the
Old turnpike, or use them on his right, as the occasion might demand.
It was unfortunate that any of these troops should have become aware they were to be relieved by
Longstreet.
It is certain that owing to this impression,
Wilcox's division, on the right, was not in condition to receive
Hancock's attack at early dawn on the morning of the 6th, by which they were driven back in considerable confusion.
In fact some of the brigades of
Wilcox's division came back in disorder, but sullenly and without panic, entirely across the
Plank road, where
General Lee and the gallant
Hill in person helped to rally them.
The assertion, made by several writers, that
Hill's troops were driven back a mile and a half, is a most serious mistake.
The right of his line was thrown back several hundred yards, but a portion of the troops still maintained their position.
The danger, however, was great, and
General Lee sent his trusted Adjutant,
Colonel W. H. Taylor, back to
Parker's store, to get the trains ready for a movement to the rear.
He sent an aid also to hasten the march of
Longstreet's divisions.
These came the last mile and a half at a double-quick, in parallel columns, along the
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Plank road.
General Longstreet rode forward with that imperturable coolness which always characterized him in times of perilous action, and began to put them in position on the right and left of the road.
His men came to the front of disordered battle with a steadiness unexampled even among veterans, and with an elan which presaged restoration of our battle and certain victory.
When they arrived, the bullets of the enemy on our right flank had begun to sweep the field in the rear of the artillery pits on the left of the road, where
General Lee was giving directions and assisting
General Hill in rallying and reforming his troops.
It was here that the incident of
Lee's charge with
Gregg's Texas brigade occurred.
The
Texans cheered lustily as their line of battle, coming up in splendid style, passed by
Wilcox's disordered columns, and swept across our artillery pit and its adjacent breast-work.
Much moved by the greeting of these brave men and their magnificent behavior,
General Lee spurred his horse through an opening in the trenches and followed close on their line as it moved rapidly forward.
The men did not perceive that he was going with them until they had advanced some distance in the charge; when they did, there came from the entire line, as it rushed on, the cry, “Go back,
General Lee I go back!”
Some historians like to put this in less homely words; but the brave
Texans did not pick their phrases.
“We won't go on unless you go back!”
A sergeant seized his bridle rein.
The gallant
General Gregg (who laid down his life on the 9th October, almost in
General Lee's presence, in a desperate charge of his brigade on the enemy's lines in the rear of
Fort Harrison), turning his horse towards
General Lee, remonstrated with him. Just then I called his attention to
General Longstreet, whom he had been seeking, and who sat on his horse on a knoll to the right of the
Texans, directing the attack of his divisions.
He yielded with evident reluctance to the entreaties of his men, and rode up to
Longstreet's position.
With the first opportunity I informed
General Longstreet of what had just happened, and he, with affectionate bluntness, urged
General Lee to go farther back.
I need not say the
Texans went forward in their charge and did well their duty.
They were eight hundred strong, and lost half their number killed and wounded on that bloody day. The battle was soon restored, and the enemy driven back to their position of the night before.
The scene with Gordon's division.
Gordon soon arranged the left of his division to make an effort to recapture the lines by driving the enemy back with his right.
As he was about to move forward with his
Georgia and
Virginia brigades in the charge,
General Lee, who had reached the front a few minutes before, rode up and joined him. Seeing that
Lee was about to ride with him in the charge, the scene of the 6th of May was repeated.
Gordon pointed to his Georgians and
Virginians,
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who had never failed him, and urged him to go to the rear.
This incident has passed into history, and I will not repeat the details here.
Suffice it to say
Lee yielded to his brave men, accepting their promise to drive the enemy back.
Gordon, carrying the colors, led them forward in a headlong, resistless charge, which carried every thing before it, recapturing the trenches on the right of the salient, and a portion of those on the left, recovering some of the lost guns and leaving the rest of them on disputed ground between our troops and the portion of the line still held by the enemy.
' brigade; but as it is substantially the same as the account given in his letter to