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296 but not absolutely necessary. Yet was it not yielded without much desperate fighting, as was witnessed by the sharp "affair" of August 18th, favorable to the Confederates, who were commanded by Gen. Harry Heth; by the brilliant action of Aug. 19th, in which the troops were immediately commanded by Heth and Mahone (the brunt of the fighting falling on Heth's division and Pegram's artillery), and in which the enemy sustained a loss of many standards and above 2,700 prisoners; by the battle of August 21st, in which Mahone failed to dislodge the enemy, for, attacking with six small brigades, and twelve guns under Pegram, he encountered, instead of the weak flank his scouts had led him to expect, a heavily-entrenched front manned by an army corps, the approaches to which were swept by a powerful artillery; finally, by

August 25th, in which 12 stands of colors, 9 pieces of artillery, 10 caissons, 2,150 prisoners, and 3,100 stands of small arms fell into the hands of the victors, who suffered a total loss of but 720 men. This brilliant stroke was delivered by Heth, under the immediate eye of A. P. Hill, and was mainly due to the steadiness of the North Carolina troops, for these constituted nearly the whole of the assaulting column, and the first colors planted on the hostile works were borne by Sergeant Roscoe Richards, Twenty-seventh North Carolina, Cooke's brigade, Heth's division. General Lee, writing to Governor Vance under date of August 29th, says: "I have been frequently called upon to mention the services of North Carolina troops in this army, but their gallantry and conduct were never more deserving of admiration than in the engagement at Reams' Station on the 25th instant." Heth, with a generosity as characteristic of the man as his taciturn pluck, declared that he did not believe that the works would have been "practicable" for any troops, had not Pegram first shaken the position by the terrific fire of his guns, and surely, so long as there is left a survivor of that memorable day, the superb conduct of the cavalry is not likely to be forgotten. Lee, who weighed his words if ever a [sic] general did, bears emphatic testimony to their gallantry in