Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 24.djvu/208

 200 Southern Historical Society Papers.

slaughter around Collins' guns was awful. General officers and aides helped to work the pieces. Finally the horses were all shot down, and the line was compelled to retreat under the withering fire. Shelby, reeling in his saddle from the loss of blood through an artery sev- ered at the wrist called for volunteers to save Collins' guns. At the cry, ' The battery is in danger, ' hundreds of the troopers turned back. Shelby said : ' Fifty, only fifty ! Bring the battery back or remain yourselves.' Collins and his lieutenants were still fighting bravely but hopelessly. The dead horses were cut away, ropes attached, and the guns dragged back safely to the lines. Fifteen only of those fifty volunteers got out unscathed and twenty remained where they fell.

" Since that day at Helena I tell the boys I would rather buck against a hoodoo than try to down Old Glory on the Fourth of July.

THE CONFEDERATE ARMIES.

The Commands from the Several Southern and Border States.

To the Editor of the Dispatch:

In your editorial of the 22d on the subject of the " Muster Rolls of Virginia Troops, ' ' you refer to a letter from Colonel Ainsworth to General Anderson, in which it was erroneously stated that Vir- ginia had 1 60 batteries of artillery in the Confederate armies. Be- low I send you an extract from "Regimental Losses in the Civil War," by Lieutenant-Colonel William F. Fox; a work which the author says, ' ' represents the patient and conscientious labor of years. Days, and often weeks, have been spent on the figures of each regiment, and no statistics are given that are not warrented by the official records." As far as I am able to judge, this volume, by comparison with others of like character, is the most accurate and complete, and by far the most impartial work of the kind published since the war by the northern press. Colonel Fox gives the fol- lowing:

"STRENGTH OF THE CONFEDERATE ARMIES." Alabama Fifty-five regiments and eleven battalions of infantry;