Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 25.djvu/289

 ///// nf /rum /iV<7atck. June. 3. i8yj-Jn. 18. 1898.]

RETREAT FROM RICHMOND.

THE ARTILLERY BRIGADE.

Its Heroic Conduct at Sailor's Creek Additional Details.

(See Ante, pp. 38, 134, 139.)

RICHMOND, VA., May j/, 1897. To the Editor of the Dispatch:

Since writing 1 my reminiscences of the retreat from Richmond, Sailor's Creek, etc., which appeared in your Confederate column on 2d of May, I have visited my old comrade, Captain Shirley Harri- son, at ' ' Brandon. ' ' While there, he spoke in the highest terms of the gallantry of his first lieutenant, J. M. Green (Company D, roth Vir- ginia Battalion of Artillery), and especially of the nerve and coolness displayed by him in a memorable night attack, while we were on the retreat. He explained how Lieutenant Green had been separated from his command, which accounted for his absence at Sailor's Creek, I noticed in your issue of yesterday a note from Lieutenant Green (now of New York), calling attention to the omission of his name and explaining his absence. I am glad of this opportunity of doing justice to a gallant comrade, who did not shirk his duty at the critical moment.

I did not undertake to give a complete roster of the officers of my battalion, in fact, could not do so; but merely published the list of officers captured at Sailor's Creek, as it appeared in the New York Herald.

There are, doubtless, others whose absence can be satisfactorily accounted for, and I am glad, in justice to his memory, to be able to explain the absence of my first lieutenant, Robert Elias Binford, as I am now reminded that this accomplished young officer was sick at Chimborazo Hospital, in Richmond. He was convalescing at the time of the evacuation, and left the city with the ambulance train; \v;is captured on the retreat, but made his escape on a captured horse, and being unable to join his own command, was assigned to Dance's battery, and surrendered with the army at Appomattox.