Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 3.djvu/651

Rh and many prisoners. After this his regiment joined the main army at Centreville and was attached to Pickett's brigade, then commanded by Gen. Philip St. George Cocke. In 1862 General Hunton was on sick leave at Lynchburg when Lee was about to attack the Federals before Richmond, and against the protests of his physician he rejoined his beloved regiment and commanded it through the Seven Days, so glorious in the history of the army. At the battle of Gaines' Mill, where Pickett's brigade made a brilliant assault and carried the three fortified lines of the enemy, before the assistance from Jackson came up, Pickett was wounded early in the assault, and Hunton, as senior colonel, carried on the successful action, which was never officially reported, owing to Pickett's severe wounds, and General Hunton's continued ill health, on account of which he was sent back to Lynchburg by General Longstreet. Again with his regiment and Pickett's division, at Gettysburg, he was wounded and his horse killed while leading his command in the charge against Cemetery hill, where his men were nearly all killed or wounded or captured, some of them beyond the stone fence, the first line of the enemy. His promotion to brigadier-general, well deserved and nobly won, but long delayed, as President Davis expressed to him after the war, on account of his reported feeble health, was dated from Gettysburg. His brigade, consisting of the Eighth, Eighteenth, Nineteenth, Twenty-eighth and Fifty-sixth regiments of Virginia infantry, he was ordered to recruit at Chaffin's farm on James river. Early in the spring of 1864 he brought his command into the campaign against Grant, and served with conspicuous gallantry throughout, the brigade suffering particularly heavy losses at Cold Harbor, where General Hunton lost his adjutant-general and warm friend. Captain Linthicum. While Grant was preparing to cross the James, Lee was planning to fight at Malvern hill, and with his cavalry on the north side of the river he was not advised of Grant's movement until Beauregard was compelled to abandon the Howlett house line and Drewry's bluff, and rush to the defense of Petersburg. At this juncture Pickett's division was ordered from Malvern hill to retake Beauregard's position, General Hunton to take the lead toward Drewry's bluff. Making one of the most rapid marches of the war, he found the position still in our hands, and