Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 29.djvu/191

 Williamsburg Junior Gmtrtl?t. 175

i

[From the Richmond, Va., IMspatch, December 1, 1901.]

WILLIAMSBURG JUNIOR GUARDS.

Battle-Roll of a Gallant Band, Worth Preserving.

The Thirty-second Virginia Regiment was organized in 1861, by Colonel B. S. Ewell (late emeritus president of William and Mary College), the brother of General Richard S. Ewell, and classmate of General U. S. Grant and other celebrities, at West Point. The Colonel afterwards served on the staff of General Joseph E. John- ston, in the South.

On our retreat from the Peninsula, when .General Joseph E. John- ston came down from Manassas to assist General J. Bankhead Mc- Gruder, who was confronted by the superior forces of General Geo. B. McClellan, we dared lo hold a company election at Bottom's bridge, by bivouac, when quite all the officers were changed. In the face of the enemy, such would never have been allowed in any European army. It was accomplished, however, without a hitch of unpleasantness. Octavius Coke, brother of your fellow-townsmen, John A. and Alexander Coke, was made captain; Robert P. Taylor, a gallant comrade, first lieutenant, and John H. Barlow, Jr., a splen- did fellow, second lieutenant. The Williamsburg Junior Guards, as Company C, was merged into the Thirty-second Regiment of Vir- ginia Volunteers, Colonel Edward Montague, of Essex county, com- manding, and Dr. James Semple, of Hampton, regimental surgeon. This regiment was with General J. E. B. Stuart when he was killed, and bore a severe part, under heavy fire, in the battles of Yellow Tavern, Gettysburg, etc. When the battle of Yellow Tavern was over, Robert A. Lively discovered a minie ball, which is now in the possession of his son, R. A. Lively, Jr., at Covington, Ky. , coiled, or rather flattened, in a pair of yarn socks he had in his hav- ersack, to which may be attributed his escape from death.

Out of the eighty-six boys who organized (only enough men in the company for officers), as the " Williamsburg Junior Guards," only a few returned to their homes in 1865, to tell the tale, and to- day only an infinitesimal margin remains. The rest have gone to join the ''ages." Their mothers had offered them as a sacrifice