Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 14.djvu/401

 General George Burgivyn Anderson. 395

They then attacked the Confederate centre and right with the same overwhelming numbers, and, after temoorary success, were again repulsed.

It was during the attack on the centre that General Anderson re- ceived the wound which, though not suspected at the time, proved to be a mortal one. " He occupied," said his adjutant-general, the late Major Seaton Gales, " a prominent position on slightly rising ground, immediately in rear of his command. While thus exposed, and displaying the most splendid conduct, animating his men by his example and directing them by his cool and collected orders, he was struck in the foot, near the ankle-joint, by a minnie ball, and fell. He was at once carried, with difficulty and danger, to an improvised hospital in the rear, and the wound examined and pronounced severe, but not serious. No one dreamed that one of the truest and bravest men that ever lived had the wound of death upon him."

He was taken into Virginia, and when the army fell back he was brought — with his brother and aide de-camp. Captain Walker Ander- son, who was also wounded at Sharpsburg, and was afterwards killed at the Wilderness -to Raleigh, arriving in the latter part of Septem- ber. His wound was a most painful one, and he suffered great agony for two weeks after reaching here. Finally amputation was decided upon, but it was too late. He sunk under the operation, and on the morning of October i6th, 1862, in the thirty-second year of his age, his brave soul bade farewell to earth. His death was regarded as a public calamity, not only by his companions-in-arms, whom it deeply afflicted, but by the people of the State, who were proud of him as a North CaroHnian. A very large assemblage of the citizens of Raleigh gathered to give expression to their grief and to testify their respect for his memory; and when the bells of the city announced the funeral hour, his mortal remains, followed by sorrowing friends, a military escort and a large concourse of citizens, were borne to your beautiful cemetery and tenderly and reverently laid beneath the sod where his monument now stands.

Thus in its early prime ended a life consecrated to duty and cr(/wned with honor. It ended ere disaster and final ruin befell the cause for which he died, and while the banner of the Confederacy still proudly floated triumphant in every breeze. He never saw that banner lowered to the foe, and his proud spirit was spared the humilia- tions to which his surviving comrades were afterwards subjected. Doubtless, if he had lived through all the bitter years after the war, and until now, when a new generation has sprung up and the all-