Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 7.djvu/756

Rh them. At the Wilderness, at Spottsylvania, Cold Harbor and before Petersburg and Richmond, the brigade under its new commander maintained its former renown. In the desperate fighting at the bloody angle on May 12, 1864, Harris and his Mississippians gained the applause of their comrades by the gallant manner in which they rushed through the blinding storm of lead to fill the gap on Ramseur's right. In the last fight at Petersburg the men of Harris' Mississippi regiment formed part of the force of 250 men who so long and stoutly held Fort Gregg, repulsing three assaults of Gibbon's division. After the war General Harris lived a while in Mississippi and then removed to California.

Brigadier-General Benjamin G. Humphreys was born in Mississippi in 1808, in Claiborne county, where he grew up to manhood. When old enough he entered the United States military academy at West Point, but did not complete his course there. He became a planter in Sunflower county, and this was his occupation when the war began. He immediately raised a fine company which was assigned to the Twenty-first Mississippi. His commission as captain of this company was dated May 18, 1861. On the 11th of September, 1861, he was commissioned colonel of the Twenty-first. He led this regiment at Seven Pines and in the Seven Days' battles. McLaws' division, to which his regiment was attached, was left below Richmond to watch the movements of the enemy when Lee started on his march against Pope, and hence did not rejoin the main army until after Second Manassas. The Twenty-first Mississippi belonged to Barksdale's brigade of this division. This whole command was distinguished throughout the Maryland campaign, and in the following December at Fredericksburg gained immortal renown by its repeated repulses of a whole Federal corps in the attempt to cross the Rappahannock before Lee was ready to receive them. Again, at