Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 14.djvu/399

 General George Burgwyn Anderson. 398

by that glorious regiment in its first hard fight with the enemy. During this engagement Colonel Anderson seized the flag of the Twenty-seventh Georgia regiment and dashed forward holding it aloft. His men seeing it as the "anxious squires" on F'lodden Field saw

"The stainless Tunstall's banner white,"

rushed madly after him,

" And such a yell was there Of sudden and portentous birth, As if men fought upon the earth And fiends in upper air."

Before their resistless sweep the stubborn foe reeled and fled, and the colors which Anderson bore were planted on their breastworks.

Such men were worthy of being commanded, as they were, by the bravest of the brave, and the cordial thanks and commendation of a division commander, who was not given to laudadon of any one, caused the immediate recognition of Colonel Anderson's merits by the President, who, being on the field, at once promoted him, and his well-won commission of Brigadier- General was forwarded and received by him on the gth day of June, 1862.

The brigade assigned to him were all North Carolinians, being composed of the Second, Fourth, Fourteenth and Thirtieth regi- ments — as fine a body of troops as ever trod the perilous edge of battle, and one which afterwards achieved as brilliant a reputation as the most brilliant in the Army of Northern Virginia. To say this is to exhaust the vocabulary of praise in behalf of any military organi- zation that has yet appeared on earth. Then came the Seven Days' struggle around Richmond, in each of which the brigade took an active part and the young Brigadier won new laurels as a most gal- lant and efficient officer. In the last of these engagements, the ter- rible work at Malvern Hill, General Anderson, while leading a desperate charge, received a wound in the hand In August the army commenced the first invasion of the enemy's territory after having fought several battles concluding with the second battle of Manassas, where Pope was ruined and a splendid victory won ; but General Anderson's brigade was not engaged in any serious fight previous to the actual invasion of Maryland. At the battle of South Mountain, however, where General D. H. Hill's division was left by General Lee to oppose the passage of General McClellan's army