Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 22.djvu/33

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Fifteenth Virginia Infantry on the afternoon of the i6th of June, 1864, when the regiment, deployed as skirmishers, so gallantly drove the enemy out of and held the works on the Howlett-house line, and a statement of mine, in a previous newspaper article, giving my recol- lection of the affair, having been declared erroneous, I beg leave to submit the annexed extracts from letters from some of the partici- pants in the skirmish to sustain my statement namely, that I joined the skirmish line a few minutes before the advance, went with it through the woods and open field and into the works, performing all the duties of a commanding officer possible under the circumstances.

I had cause to be proud of my little regiment. It was one of the best drilled and best disciplined in the Army of Northern Virginia, and on this particular afternoon got in some very pretty work of its own volition, notwithstanding the fact that it seems to have had three commanding officers, of whom that good, gallant, modest gentleman, J. D. Waid, captain of Company I, in all fairness deserves the great- est credit. He deployed the regiment most admirably, made all the dispositions for the attack, and in good faith, ignorant of the presence of any commanding officer, conducted the charge, or, at least, so much of it as he could superintend and control, to a successful issue. All honor to the gallant " Old Boy," and I have no doubt the result would have been the same had neither General Corse nor Colonel Morrison been present, for it was not the first time he had heard the singing of those "things" (minies) which, innocently, he mistook for " bees " at Malvern Hill.

The following extracts from letters of different persons engaged in the affair show how treacherous is the memory of man:

CAPTAIN WAID'S STATEMENT.

Captain Waid says: While passing Drewry's Bluff Colonel Morri- son stopped his horse on the roadside, and, as my company ap- proached, said: "Waid, take command of the regiment; I want to see a friend at Drewry's Bluff."

He goes on to tell of the dispositions for attack, and says: "Glancing to the rear just as we started on the charge, I received a special inspiration, as it were. A few paces in rear, standing on an abandoned earthwork, was General M. D. Corse, waving his hat above his head, and cheering on the men with his well-known phrase on such occasions, 'Go it, my bullies.' After reaching the works, General Corse's orders having been executed, my skirmishers were halted in the trenches of the Hewlett line, and I was awaiting fur-