Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 37.djvu/325

 '''WHO WAS LAST SOLDIER TO LEAVE BURNING CITY.''' The September Confederate Veteran contained a statement that there was dispute concerning what soldier, or command of soldiers, was the last to leave Richmond on the morning of April 3, 1865, and asked information. Colonel Clement Sulivane, of Cambridge, Md., replied in the December issue, and as his communication must be of interest to all Times-Dispatch readers as part of the history of Richmond, I beg leave to submit it for their benefit:

"There should be no dispute about it," to give Colonel Sulivane's answer verbatim. "It was a fragment of General G. W. C. Lee's command, known as the Local Defense Brigade, and attached to his division, placed under my command, then assistant adjutant of Lee's Division, by Lieutenant-General Ewell on the morning of April 2. This was immediately after receipt of the news that our lines had been broken before Petersburg. The last bridge over the James—Mayo's—at the foot of Fourteenth street, was guarded by this command from about 4 A. M., on April 3, until General M. W. Garey's Cavalry Brigade crossed at 8 A. M., and at 8:15 (in pursuance of instructions from Lieutenant-General Ewell given me just before daylight), I burned the bridge with my own hands, assisted by an engineer officer, who had placed barrels of tar along it at intervals from shore to shore for that purpose, I never knew his name, having simply found him there to await my orders. This was in the face of the cavalry of General Wetzel's army, who had poured down Fourteenth street in pursuit of Garey. I then marched on and overtook my division on the road to Amelia Courthouse about 2 P. M., that day."

COINCIDENCE OF PROMOTION..

This same account was published in the "Battles and Leaders of the Civil War," issued by the Century Magazine some