This text is part of:
Table of Contents:
[284]
R. McDonald, R. N. Davis, and Webster, privates of Fourth company; R. K. Wilkerson, J. B. McMullan, W. A. McRay, privates of First company, Washington artillery; L. D. Porter, W. R. Payne, C. A. Louque and T. J. Dimitry, of the Louisiana Guard artillery.
We know how the Louisiana troops fought from Bull Run to Appomattox hill, losing a man here and another there, each man's loss making a gap. We have seen through how many fields they passed in victorious peril.
We have told more than once of the ‘forlorn hope’ which fell to the Louisianians from trusting commanders, always leaving broads gaps in its train.
We know how at Malvern Hill, with Waggaman at their head, in that awful ascent they went up, like Gants Glacees in the war of the Fronde, sweeping on while guns plowed into them from the hill with terrible carnage!
We have seen them in that deadly charge at Cemetery hill.
We have seen the Louisianians, whenever called upon, make answer, present!1 and charge reckless of danger and laughing at death.
Take Manassas as the epoch of Hays' greatest strength, 1,400 men!
Now compare Manassas with that thin line which moved triumphantly up Appomattox hill.
Only 250 men to speak there, on the crest, for the two brigades which Death had struck so often!
We have, now that the war drums have ceased to beat, and memory alone makes it clear, the contrast to the recapitulation from official sources, which showed how full-ranked with eager youths was the Louisiana contingent of 1861.
Then, no gaps were in the ranks.
Recapitulation: Total original enrollment of infantry, 36,243; artillerists, 4,024; cavalry, 10,046; sappers and
1 Even as these words are written, a call flashes from the Potomac to our battalion of Washington artillery. That word has met prompt response from gallant volunteers, eager to fight under their country's flag in the dense thickets of Cuba. No coincidence can furnish a nobler lesson of patriotic hope than this. As the fathers fought against the Stars and Stripes, so will the sons, with equal ardor and singleness of zeal, load their pieces for the flag.
Atlanta, Ga. 1899.
Tufts University provided support for entering this 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.