Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 4.djvu/74

56 remain an undecided question.&quot; Colonel McRae evidently thought they would. However, the student of the Confederate war history knows from the slaughter at Malvern Hill and Boonsboro, at Gettysburg and Fredericksburg, how well-nigh impossible it is for the most dauntless infantry to drive an American foe from an artillery and musketry crowned plateau. Even if the rest of the brigade had come when sent for, it hardly seems possible for two regiments, already crippled by many casualties, numbering together &quot;not over 1,000&quot; before any loss, aided by only two fresh regiments, all without any artillery, to have put to flight five full regiments and ten pieces of artillery, posted on a crest, sheltered in part by a redoubt, and commanded by so good a soldier as Hancock. Moreover, a careful reading of Hancock’s report shows that what McRae took for a retreat of Hancock s artillery was simply the retirement of his guns, one by one, to his original and stronger line, made in obedience to an order from General Smith and showing no signs of disorder. Colonel McRae confirms this when he says in his report, &quot;the battery had been retired en echelon with great precision, and there was no such manifest disorder as would justify storming the redoubt.&quot; Colonel Maury, of the Virginia regiment, says: &quot;Had the regiments been allowed to go on, the redoubt would have been captured without further loss.&quot; That this is a mistake is shown by McRae s report. He says: &quot;I had previously sent my adjutant to General Hill, announcing my loss and the danger of my position, and earnestly begging for reinforcements; but finding my force too small and the position fatally destructive, I did not wait his return, but ordered my command to fall off down to the cover of the fence, and immediately after I received the order to retire.&quot;

Colonel Maury in this same article, blames the Confederate commander for not bringing up his whole division to extricate the two regiments from their perilous