Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 24.djvu/213

 Chum, ///>////,.

[From the Richmond Dispatch. Feb. 7, 1897.!

CHANCELLORSVILLE.

Retrospective Glance at the Battlefield.

GRAPHIC DESCRIPTION OF THE FIGHT.

Gallant Part of the 55th Virginia Regiment. An Interesting Paper. Read before Wright- Latane Camp of Tappahannock.

At a recent meeting of Wright- Latane Camp, Confederate Vet- erans, Captain Albert Reynolds, Company F, Fifty-fifth Virginia Regiment, and second lieutenant commander of the camp, read the following paper:

Ever since the war I have had a desire to revisit some of the fields on which I did battle for my country, but never had an opportunity to do so till last summer, while visiting relatives in Spotsylvania county, when my brother proposed to take me to the Chancellors- ville battlefield.

So early Monday morning, the last day of August, we started to- wards the courthouse, but leaving that to our right, came to quite a pretty monument situated in the forks of the road and dedicated to Major-General Sedgwick, of the Federal army, who was killed on that spot during the battle of Spotsylvania Courthouse.

As I had been wounded a short time before the battle of ' ' The Wilderness," I was not present with my regiment when that battle was fought, and, consequently, knew nothing of the field; so, after inspecting the monument, we struck off again for Chancellorsville, passing by Screamersville, where the Second Adventists were hold- ing a camp-meeting. The tents looked quite pretty, reminding me of the time when the Army of Northern Virginia dwelt in tents /'. e., when they could get them.

About ii o'clock we came to the plank road, and turned up to- wards Chancellorsville.

I felt as if I was on holy ground; for it was right along here that we marched the ist day of May, thirty-three years ago, led by Lee and Jackson, and A. P. Hill, and Heth, and Mallory. It is just about as warm and dusky now as then. We soon came to the road that we took to the left by " The Furnace," but our time being lim-