Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 16.djvu/306

 300 Southern Historical Society Papers.

soon after we took this camp. He did not return, and is supposed to have been taken prisoner." (Ibid, page 562.)

The foregoing statements, especially of the three brigade com- manders, Chalmers, Jackson, and Deas, as well as of Colonel Wheeler (a graduate of West Point) and Colonel Moore, certainly give such a picture of the condition of their several brigades and regiments that, had General Withers been brought before a court-martial for the statement in his official report, made on the 2oth of June, 1862, which we shall cite, any such court must have found him guilty of conduct that I need not specify at this time. The language in ques- tion is as follows :

"This division was moved promptly forward, although some regi- ments had not succeeded in getting a supply of ammunition, and had just entered a deep and precipitous ravine when the enemy opened a terriffic fire upon it. Staff-officers were immediately dispatched to bring up all the reinforcements to be found, and the order was given to brigade commanders to charge the batteries. These orders were being obeyed when, to my astonishment, a large portion of the com- mand was observed to move rapidly by the left flank from under the fire of the enemy. Orders were immediately sent to arrest the com- manding officers, and for the troops to be promptly placed in position to charge the batteries. Information was soon brought, however, that it was by General Beauregard's orders, delivered thus directly to brigade commanders, that the troops were being rapidly led from under the fire of the enemy's gunboats. Thus ended the fight on Sunday, and thus was this command disorganized, an evil sorely feH the next day." (Ibid, page 533.)

All the more unwarranted does such language appear from his own immediate admission, that simultaneously with this order to retire out of action, Bragg having placed him in command of all the troops on the right, and " it being now near dark, the order was given to fall back half a mile and bivouac for the night." And just here it is noteworthy, that Withers did not lodge that night with the troops of his own division, but with Colonel Martin, of Breckin- ridge's division, from which the charitable deduction is, that he was unable to find his own troops; for, otherwise, it was his duty to be with, and attend to, their reorganization and readiness for the next day. Hence, if there be significance in words, he makes il clear that such was the absolute lateness of the hour, that had the attempt been made to carry the Federal batteries whose fire he characterizes as" terrific with such troops as were there assembled, it would have