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Annual reunion of Pegram Battalion Association in the
Hall
of
House of Delegates
,
Richmond, Va.
,
May
21st
,
1886
.
Extracts from the diary of
Lieutenant-Colonel
John
G.
Pressley
, of the
Twenty-Fifth South Carolina Volunteers
.
Ceremonies connected with the unveiling of the statue of
General
Robert
E.
Lee
, at
Lee
circle,
New Orleans, Louisiana
,
February
22
,
1884
.
Address before the
Virginia
division of
Army of Northern Virginia
, at their reunion on the evening of
October
21
,
1886
.
Fortification and siege of
Port Hudson
—Compiled by the
Association
of defenders of
Port Hudson
;
M.
J.
Smith
,
President
;
James
Freret
,
Secretary
.
[529]
Grant withdrew from our left, and General Lee became convinced that he was going to swing round to turn our right, he therefore ordered the artillery on a portion of our left to be withdrawn from the immediate front so as to be ready to move at a moment's notice.
On that night General Johnson, hearing the enemy massing on his front, sent a message to his corps commander (General Ewell) asking the return of his artillery.
He also sent to General Gordon, commanding Early's division, asking a reinforcement of two brigades (Hays's and Pegram's), which he placed in a second line on the rear of what he considered the weakest of his defences.
The delay of the artillery and consequent disaster to Johnson's division are matters of record.
The actual loss in captures was about three thousand men (his division was four thousand strong at the beginning of the campaign) and eighteen pieces of artillery, which the enemy did not get, however, for twenty hours. Johnson's message to his corps commander about the massing of the enemy in his front did not reach General Lee.
He usually, in these days at Spotsylvania, left the battlefield at nine or ten o'clock in the evening for his tent, a short distance in the rear.
Rising at 3 A. M. and breakfasting by candle-light, he returned to the front.
On the morning of the 12th, hearing the firing, he rode rapidly forward, but did not know of the disaster to Johnson's division until he reached the front.
Before he arrived Brigadier-General Gordon, commanding Early's division, in obedience to orders previously given by General Lee to support any portion of the line about the salient which might be attacked, hearing the firing about daylight, had moved forward towards the salient with his division.
Moving in column in the dim light, with General Robert Johnston's North Carolina brigade in front, he came in contact with Hancock's line advancing through the woods, it having overrun General Edward Johnson's division, capturing his lines and a large number of his men. The enemy's line thus moving on, stretched across our works on both their flanks, thus taking our men in the trenches on both sides the captured angle completely in flank.
They fired on Gordon's advancing column, severely wounding General Robert Johnston and causing some confusion among the men. It was still not light—the woods dense, and the morning rainy.
A line of troops could not be seen a hundred yards off. It was a critical moment.
Gordon halted his column, and with that splendid audacity which characterized him, deployed a brigade as skirmishers —extending, as he supposed, across the whole Federal front—and ordered a charge by this line of skirmishers.
This charge caused
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