Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 34.djvu/258

 250 Southern Historical Society Papers.

from the Times-Dispatch, September 30, 1906.

THIRTY-SECOND AT SHARPSBURG.

Graphic Story of Work Done on One of the Bloodiest of Fields Forty-five Per Cent. Loss.

Shot at From Behind a Stone Fence Samples of Ptrsonal Courage.

[For further information of the terrific battle and of the loss sustained by the Fifteenth Virginia Infantry, Colonel E. M. Morrison, see Southern Historical Society Papers, Vol. XXXIII, pp. 97-110. ED.]

Editor Times- Dispatch :

Sir, On December 10, 1905, you published in the Confederate column an account of the part the Fifteenth Virginia Regiment took in that awful battle of Sharpsburg, on September 17, 1862. It was written by that noble and gallant gentleman, Colonel E. M. Morrison.

The hope was then expressed that some soldier who was there would do for the Thirty-second Virginia Regiment what Colonel Morrison had done for the Fifteenth Virginia. I have waited for nearly one year to see if some one more competent than I v;oukl respond, but so far I have seen no account of the Thirty-second Virginia, and the old regiment was there, and did her full duty, having lost forty-five per cent, in killed and wounded. If our noble Colonel Edgar Bunn Montague, Lieutenant- Colonel W. R. Willis, Major Baker P. Lee, or several Captains, Samuel Armistead, Octavius Coke, O. P. Johnson, Segar Green, Adjutant Pettit, and other true and brave men were alive, they could and would give a good account; but I will try and do the best that I can, and tell what I saw and did from my standpoint, which was not very far right or lefi of our colors. Bob Forrest was the color-bearer, John Cose, of Company I, was on his right front rank, and I was on his left front rank. Captain Octavius Coke, of Company C, on my left.

Our brigade (Semmes's) left Maryland Heights on the afternoon