Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 14.djvu/206

 200 Southern Historical Society Papers,

was not carried out, except in the case of Pickett's division, which afterwards consisted of four Virginia brigades.*

When, afier the able defence of the Peninsula by General John- ston, and the brilliant and extraordinary campaign of Jackson in the Vallev, the armies composing the department of Northern Virginia had converged, in its defence, upon Richmond, they united there and assumed for the first time the name of the Army of Northern Virginia. As I think it has somewhere been observed in doing so we declared that the defence of Richmond was not on the Chickahominy, but in the region between the James and Potomac, which has been rendered so famous by the deeds of the Army of Northern Virginia. The Flanders of the war, as it has been styled, in which a quarter of a million of men perished in the fierce struggle for its possession, and in which the armies of the North and South were engaged for nearly four years, circling, around in their struggle the point at which they first met in battle — the fields of Manassas. What wonder then that the neighbors tell that often of a summer's night the shouts of victory and cries of defeat, and the moaning of the wounded can be heard, as the spirits of the dead rise and meet each other again over the old embankment and railroad cut.

As these armies approached the capital, they dropped the title of armies, and took the names of the corps and divisions which they were afterwards to bear, with few modifications, to the end of the war.

The Army of the Potomac became the First corps, Longstreet's, including the army of the Peninsula, which became Magruder's division, and afterwards McLaws's, and then Kershaw's. The Army of Norfolk becoming Huger's division, afterwards Mahone's and then Wright's. The Army of the Valley and the Army of the Rap- pahannock — the latter having become, on its march to Richmond, A. P. Hill's Light Division — becoming the Second corps, Jack- son's.

After General Jackson's death the two corps were reorganized into three — Longstreet's, Ewell's, and A. P. Hill's — with but few changes in the division organization.

The Army of Northern Virginia was composed principally of troops from the States of Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia. There were from Virginia 57 regiments of infantry, and 19 of cavalry — 76. From North Carolina, 53 regiments of

■Records War of Rebellion, Vol. 5, p. 960.