Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 28.djvu/221

 Rattle of the Crater. 215

now?' 'No,' said Girardey, 'General Mahone desires to annex Wright's Brigade on to you and send you in together.' A few mo- ments later, however, Captain Girardey authorized him to charge. Colonel Weisiger then gave the word ' Forward! ' which was imme- diately communicated along down the line, and with one impulse,. as it seemed to me, the whole brigade sprang forward and rushed up the hill, making the most brilliant and orderly charge I ever had the opportunity to witm >>.

(iKNERAL WEISIGER WOUNDED.

"Arrived at the works, General Weisiger remained in command of the brigade until two unsuccessful charges had been made by Wright's brigade, when he was wounded. I assisted him from the field between n and 12 o'clock, and on reaching the before-men- tioned arbor, where was the mortar referred to, we met General Ma- hone, who, I am satisfied from the several statements of participants in the action had previously been in the breast-works with the men.

"Colonel Weisiger here informed General Mahone that he had been wounded and had turned over the command of the brigade to Colonel Rogers."

General Weisiger, in a statement published in 1880, after the com- mittee had published the several statements from communication, said:

" I repeat that General Mahone was not in the line of battle from its formation to the time the charge was made; nor was he in the captured works until after I had been wounded and retired. He has not to my knowledge claimed it for himself; it has only been done by his friend. ' '

If General Weisiger was right in this statement, Major Richard W. Jones, of the i2th Virginia Regiment, who commanded the regi- ment in the action, was in error when in a letter to General Mahone written in 1877 he said:

"On getting my regiment in position in the ravine your courier delivered me a message to report to you at the right of the brigade. I went immediately, walking in front of the brigade, and found all the other regimental commanders before you when I arrived. At that moment you gave an order to have the Georgia Brigade moved rapidly to its position on the right of the Virginia Brigade, and then