Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 7.djvu/667

180 led a line of skirmishers in the fighting Friday morning. The loss of the brigade in killed and wounded was 212.

After this battle Posey's brigade was assigned to Hill's corps, but the two Mississippi brigades fought in the same line on the second day of the battle of Gettysburg, in the fierce attack when Hood on the extreme right stormed Little Round Top. Posey charged on the left of Anderson's division, and Barksdale on the right of McLaws. Posey on the extreme left of the advancing column drove back the enemy beyond the road; and Barksdale, gallantly leading his men in the terrific fight at the peach orchard, fell mortally wounded. The last words of that ardent patriot to fall on one of his own countrymen's ears were: "I am killed. Tell my wife and children I died fighting at my post."

Maj.-Gen. Lafayette McLaws, in a paper read before the Georgia Historical Society on Gettysburg, some time in 1878, had this to say of the performance of Barksdale and his men on that day: "Barksdale, who, as I have said, had been exceedingly impatient for the order to advance, and whose enthusiasm was shared in by his command, was standing ready to give the word, not far from me; and so soon as it was signified to me I sent my aide-de-camp, Capt. G. B. Lamar, Jr., to carry the order to General Barksdale, and the result I express in Captain Lamar's words: "I had witnessed many charges marked in every way by unflinching gallantry—indeed, I had had the honor of participating when in the line with the First Georgia regulars, but I never saw anything to equal the dash and heroism of the Mississippians. You remember how anxious General Barksdale was to attack the enemy, and his eagerness was participated in by all his officers and men, and when I carried him the order to advance his face was radiant with joy. He was in front of his brigade, hat off, and his long, white hair reminded me of the "white plume of Navarre." I saw him as far