Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 12.djvu/58

48 of Generals Cheatham and Wright, and ex-Governor John C. Brown, all of whom commanded Tennessee troops under General Bragg, I am convinced that there was no Tennessee organization in the brigade of General Alexander W. Reynolds during the Mission Ridge fight, or at any other time. The evidence furnished by you and them make it certain that Reynolds's brigade was composed of the Fifty-fourth and Sixty-third Virginia, Fifty-eighth and Sixtieth North Carolina infantry regiments; hence,|the statement in the note on page 496, of the November number, 1883, of the, that "Brigadier-General Alexander W. Reynolds's brigade of East Tennesseeans were the first to give way, and could not be rallied," does injustice to the gallant troops from your State.

The authority for the statement in the note referred to is given in my letter to you of the 14th instant, which in justice to us both should be published along with this. It may be that General Bragg intended to convey the idea that Reynolds's brigade had just been serving in East Tennessee under Buckner, and had recently joined him ; but I submit that his language, quoted in mine of the 14th instant, conveys the impression that was made use of by me.

Not wishing to do injustice, or be guilty of a seeming wrong to any one, I take pleasure in authorizing you to make such use of our correspondence as will put the question in its true light.

Yours truly,

E. T. Sykes.

The Story of the Arkansas.

By

No. I.

[We are glad to be able to put in our records the interesting "story of the Arkansas " as told by the gallant and lamented Gift, who did so much to "make the history" which he so admirably "tells as it was."]

The 15th day of July, 1862, was a warm day, literally and figuratively, for some two hundred persons cooped up in the famous Confederate steamer Arkansas.

Our good ship had been gotten up under the peculiar circum-