Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 08.djvu/294

282 to support these Virginians, suffered scarcely at all, although in returning its losses were perhaps heavier. The writer, therefore, formerly Colonel of these sturdy mountaineers [at that time Major and commanding during the latter part of the action—Colonels Terry and Hairston having been wounded], feels that his duty to his gallant comrades, who so freely shed their blood on every field from Manassas to Appomattox, demands that he should show their title to the preeminence won by their valiant deeds in the estimation of friend and foe, and preserve in lasting memorial the proofs thereof. The more so, perhaps, because, owing chiefly to the active campaign upon which it then entered, no report or description, so far as known, of the part taken by this regiment at Williamsburg, has ever been made. None of the writer's superior officers witnessed the entire fight, for all were wounded before its close, and being himself wounded a few weeks afterwards at Seven Pines, he made no detached report of the Williamsburg charge. A very thrilling account was published by the newspapers of the day of the part taken by the Fifth North Carolina, which attracted much attention and is now on record; so that the future historian, unless a careful critic as well, finding no description of the charge of the Virginians, would naturally conclude that they bore but a subordinate part.

The Twenty-fourth Virginia infantry, was one of the very first organized of the Virginia regiments. It was composed of companies raised in the mountain counties of Southwest Virginia, and as General Early was its first colonel, it was, particularly in the first days of the war, often spoken of as Early's regiment. It was formed in June, 1861, at Lynchburg, and proceeded forthwith Manassas, where its Colonel was soon given a brigade, to which this regiment was attached. The appearance of this brigade upon the enemy's left flank at Manassas is stated by General Beauregard to have been the signal for the giving way of his line and the commencement of his flight.

The regiment remained encamped near Union mills during the following winter, picketing the railroad near Burk's and Fairfax stations, and in the spring moved with the army to the Rappahannock and then down on the Peninsula. When it reached the Yorktown lines, it mustered for duty some seven hundred muskets. Its field officers were Colonel William R. Terry, of Bedford, promoted from captain of cavalry for gallantry at Manassas, a dashing soldier of many a battle whose scars he bears to this day; Lieutenant-Colonel Peter Hairston, of Henry, a very Bayard in looks