Joseph T. Derry , A. M. , Author of School History of the United States; Story of the Confederate War, etc., Confederate Military History, a library of Confederate States Military History: Volume 6, Georgia
Clement Anselm Evans, Ed.

[76] Lafayette McLaws and Howell Cobb, and Cobb's legion under T. R. R. Cobb, well sustained the reputation of the State. McLaws was promoted brigadier-general and assigned to important command, and Colonel Colquitt was given charge of a brigade including the Sixth and Sixteenth. Late in the year the Twenty-third regiment, unarmed, was sent forward to Yorktown. An unfortunate incident in the history of Cobb's legion is preserved in the official reports of General Magruder. It appears that a scouting party had been fired upon, and he had sent forward an ambuscading force to the vicinity of New Market bridge. ‘While the troops were moving into position on the morning of November 13th,’ says Magruder, ‘two of my vedettes approached the infantry position of the Georgia legion, at the time commanded by Lieutenant-Colonel Garnett. From some cause, after a short parley, they turned and rode off at full speed. At this a fire was opened upon them without orders from the commander. I regret that in the effort to cause the fire to cease (many of the officers being in front at its commencement), Major Bagley was killed, Captain Morris and one private wounded, and Colonel Garnett's horse shot under him.’

During the period in the fall of 1861, when the descent of a Federal naval expedition was feared at all points of the coast, some of the Georgians who had been called to Virginia were ordered to North Carolina for service. M. A. Stovall's Third battalion, the Twenty-fourth, and Colonel Wofford's Eighteenth were at Goldsboro; but in November Stovall's battalion was transferred to east Tennessee.

The Third Georgia, Col. A. R. Wright, moved into North Carolina early in September, for the purpose of reinforcing Fort Hatteras, but that yielding to the enemy before they could reach it, the regiment took possession of Roanoke island and set to work putting it in condition for defense. On October 1st Colonel Wright learned