Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 29.djvu/243

 A Striking War Indent. 227

[From the Baltimore, Md., Shin, December, 1901.]

A STRIKING WAR INCIDENT.

How General "Jeb." Stuart Lost His Life In Recapturing a Borrowed Maryland Battery.

General Bradley T. Johnson, the distinguished Maryland ex-Con- federate, writes to the Sun as follows, giving some hitherto unpub- lished military dispatches connected with the operations of Maryland troops in the battles around Richmond in 1864:

Among your collection of unpublished military dispatches you may include these two, which have never been printed. In October, 1863, I was ordered by General Lee to assemble the Maryland Line, then in separate commands in the Army of Northern Virginia ex- cept the Latrobe Battery, which was with the Army of the Southwest at Hanover Junction, to guard the five long, high bridges there, over the North Anna, the South Anna, and the Middle river, all within a mile or two of each other, and which were vital for Lee's communication with the Valley, with Richmond, and thence the whole South.

I there collected the Second Maryland Infantry, First Maryland Cavalry, First Maryland Artillery, Captain Dement; Second Mary- land Artillery, Captain Griffin (the Baltimore Light), and the Fourth Maryland Artillery, Captain W. Scott Chew; the Third Maryland Artillery. Latrobe' s Battery served in the west, and was never in my command.

The Maryland Line, thus gotten together, was the largest collec- tion of Marylanders who ever fought under the gold and black. Our duty was very important, and we picketed the country all to the east and down the Pamunkey to New Kent.

Shortly after midnight I received the following from General Jeb Stuart, who was then at Taylorsville, a mile and a half distant, with the cavalry of the Army of Northern Virginia:

MILITARY DISPATCH.

MAY nth, 2:30 o'clock A. M., 1864. To Colonel B. T. Johnson :

COLONEL, General Stuart directs me to say that he would be glad to obtain one of your light batteries to assist him to-day, as he