Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 4.djvu/324

300 Sharpsburg with his brigade about 2:30 in the afternoon, just in time to meet an advance of the enemy which had broken the line of Jones division and captured a battery. &quot;With a yell of defiance,&quot; A. P. Hill reported, &quot;Archer charged them, retook Mclntosh s guns, and drove them back pellmell. Branch and Gregg, with their old veterans, sternly held their ground, and pouring in destructive volleys, the tide of the enemy surged back, and breaking in confusion, passed out of sight. The three brigades of my division actively engaged did not number over 2,000 men, and these, with the help of my splendid batteries, drove back Burn side s corps of 15,000 men. &quot; Soon after, as Hill and the three brigadiers were consulting, some sharpshooter sent a bullet into the group, which crashed through the brain of General Branch, and he fell, dying, into the arms of his staff-officer, Major Engelhard. In noticing this sad event, General Hill wrote: &quot;The Confederacy has to mourn the loss of a gallant soldier and accomplished gentleman. He was my senior brigadier, and one to whom I could have intrusted the command of the division, with all confidence.&quot; General Branch left one son, W. A. B. Branch, who has served in Congress from the First district.

Brigadier-General Thomas Lanier Clingman was born at Huntsville, N. C., July 27, 1812, son of Jacob and Jane (Poindexter) Clingman. His grandfather, Alexander Clingman, a native of Germany, emigrated to Pennsylvania, served in the continental army, was captured in General Lincoln s surrender, and after the war made his home in Yadkin, now Surry county, becoming allied by marriage with the Patillo family. Young Clingman was graduated by the university of North Carolina, and began the practice of law at Hillsboro, where in 1835 he was elected to the legislature as a Whig, begin ning a career of national prominence in politics. Remov-