Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 07.djvu/375

Rh it is evident that he fixes it at the time the Fifth North Carolina regiment was charging the enemy's line—and about the time it reached the fence—for he continues: "The Fifth North Carolina, on our right, as I said above, unfortunately stopped and commenced firing," &c. This statement to me is a bundle of inexplicabilities.

1. General Early was not at that time on the field. He had left before the North Carolina regiment had come parallel with the redoubt.

2. There could have been no gap "left by the oblique movement of Early's regiment into the wood," because there was no Early's regiment, and neither of the other two regiments—the Thirty-eighth Virginia, Colonel Whittle, or the Twenty-third North Carolina, Colonel Hoke—had been on the field, but had both "been stopped in the woods," and General Hill was with them.

3. It was I who ordered the advance of the Twenty- fourth Virginia to that charge on the left of the Fifth North Carolina, and if there was any gap between the two regiments filled by Colonel Bratton's troops, I never heard of it. I accredited the Fifth North Carolina and the Twenty-fourth Virginia with that charge in a letter to the Governor of North Carolina, written a few days after and which was extensively published, and also in my report as brigade commander to General Hill. I certainly made no mention of any South Carolina troops, for I was not aware of the presence of any; nor did I ever hear any complaint of the omission.

The Colonel's further narrative is equally a mistake: "The Twenty-fourth Virginia on my left was not in time to engage them simultaneously with the Fifth North Carolina regiment, and also met the concentrated fire of nearly the whole of the enemy's line, but being nearer to cover, did not suffer so terribly in retiring, but were completely used up, thus leaving my regiment advancing alone to share the same fate."

Now, how could it be possible that the Twenty-fourth Virginia "was not in time," when it was already there, and had engaged the enemy, and had driven him, and had lost by wounds its Colonel and Lieutenant-Colonel before the Fifth North Carolina got up, and when General Early had already been wounded while leading it? It would seem from this that Colonel Bratton's regiment was left to advance alone after the Twenty-fourth Virginia had retired, and was not ordered "by General D. H. Hill to move by the left flank into the wood" until after it was "used up."

Now the fact is the Twenty-fourth Virginia joined the Fifth