Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 27.djvu/217

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To Col. J. B. Magruder, 57th Virginia regiment,

Commanding, White Marsh Road.

Thereupon the colonel commanding issued congratulatory orders to his troops. General Longstreet ordered his troops to withdraw from the siege of Suffolk on the night of the 4th of May, and Col- onel Magruder's regiment marched from thence to Richmond, where it remained about a week; thence it moved to encamp within two miles of Hanover Junction, where preparations were made for the advance into Pennsylvania.

On June 24111, Pickett's division crossed the Potomac at Williams- port and bivouacked on the Maryland shore. It entered Chambers- burg on the 27th of June, marched directly through the town, and encamped on the York road about four miles out. The division was detained here three or four days, destroying railroad depots, work- shops and public machinery. On the morning of the 2d day of July, 1863, at 2 o'clock, it took up the march to Gettysburg, marching 23 miles, and within three miles of that place, before it was halted to rest. Early next morning it moved towards the line of battle, and in the afternoon made the great charge which shattered and immor- talized Pickett's splendid division. Colonel John Bowie Magruder fell mortally wounded within twenty steps of the enemy's cannon, shouting: " They are ours." He was struck by two shots one in the left breast and the other under the right arm, which crossed the wound in his breast.

On the spot where he thus gloriously fell mortally wounded, Col- onel Magruder was made prisoner and carried to the hospital in Gettysburg. Here he languished until July 5th, 1863, when his spirit took its flight. He was a member of the " Epsilon Alpha Fraternity," and a frater caused his remains to be encased in a metallic coffin, and, with all his personal effects, sent to his father by flag of truce to Richmond, in October, 1863. He was buried at " Glenmore," in Albemarle county.

His cousin, James Watson Magruder, himself afterward killed on the battlefield at Meadow Bridge, May nth, 1864, writing from camp near Fredericksburg. August 8, 1863, said: "From last infor- mation, John now sleeps among those gallant spirits who that day bore our banner so nobly against the ramparts of the enemy on the battlefield in a foreign land. If so, he died with his laurels thick around him. I saw him in Loudoun [county] a short while before the army left Virginia, looking better and in better spirits than I