Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 20.djvu/199

 Presentation of Statue of A. P. Hill. 193

went into the field worse equipped to meet their opposers than any other branch of the service, whilst they had to combat from the first the fire of the best equipped batteries, with the most improved guns and ammunition then known to the science of warfare. The artillery of our army came out of the war with at least ninety per cent, of its guns, ammunition and equipment captured from the enemy, which fact tells its own story, and there is no page in the splendid history of the Army of Northern Virginia more luminous with glory and heroism than that which is emblazoned with the flashes of artillery which belonged to that army. Are there any more glorious names on the proud and immortal roll of fame than those of Pelham, of Pegram, of Latimer, of Coleman, of Crutchfield, of Brown, of Wat- son, of McCarthy, and a thousand others that I might mention ?

Could anything be more incomplete than the history of the Army of Northern Virginia, with the splendid parts performed by the Washington Artillery Battalion, the Howitzer Battalion, Pegram's glorious battalion, Jones's, Carter's, Andrew's, Poagne's and dozens of other battalions and batteries, the equals, in every respect, of any of those I have named ? As I remarked before, I cannot begin to recount the splendid deeds of skill and daring, of privation, heroism and devotion to duty performed, on the march and on the field, by the soldiers of these splendid commands. Listen for a moment, whilst I read to you what was said of this arm of the service by some of those in command on the memorable field of Gettysburg, on which was fought the greatest artillery duel known to the annals of modern warfare. A field on which my own battery fired six hun- dred and sixty-one rounds (next to the largest number fired by any battery in our corps on the field), where I saw two as noble youths as ever gave their lives to their country almost cut in twain at one of our guns, and two other bright and gallant boys at once step in and take the places of those who were shot down with such prompt- ness and alacrity as to cause little or no intermission in the firing of the gun at which the fearful casualty had occurred.

General A. P. Hill, who was standing between the guns of my battery a portion of the time during the battle of Gettysburg, and by whose command I fired a house which afforded shelter to the enemy's sharpshooters, striking it three times out of four, at a dis- tance of a mile and a half. He, who was the very soul chivalry and of truth, thus refers to some of the work of the artillery in his report

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