Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 37.djvu/298

290 the first time, and that it fought with the colors after your first encounter.

This question is so profitless, that I make no mention of it in anything I now say or write. As I wrote to Capt. Gamble, at Porto Rico, only a few days ago, in answer to a lot of questions he asked, the loss your regiment sustained at Gettysburg was phenominal, and that the flag question should be dropped forever, as unimportant and not worthy of remark in any paper he might be preparing about the 149th. Of course I sent him a copy of my pamphlet. I presume he would like your pamphlet if he does not have it. His address is Captain Gamble, Fort Morro, San Juan, Porto Rico. I presume he is the son of one of the 149th. * * * * *."

(The italics in both of above are my own.)

(3) "I had a personal interview with Gen. Huidekoper last October (1906), upon this question (the Color question). He states positively and firmly that right after the charge to the cut of the 149th, apparently soon after you were wounded, that a force of rebels came down on your left and crossed the pike; and that they had the colors of the 149th, that the right of the 150th, and for all he can say the left of the 149th, went after those fellows and the colors; drove the enemy back, and that the flag of the 149th was brought to him by men wearing "Bucktails," whom he supposed to be his men; but who may have been 149th men as well, as all he noticed was the "Bucktails." They brought him the flag and he ordered it taken to Colonel Dwight with his compliments." In the above quotation H. gives three different versions of "the recapture canard," too contradictory in several essentials to ensure their credence in a court of law.

In the first, as given in his official report, when the incidents of the battle were fresh in his memory, the recapture and return of the colors is claimed to have taken place during Wisters charge, north of the pike. In the second version given 43 years after the battle, he says the colors were "not far from where the Reynold's monument is,"