Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 39.djvu/77

 Dahlgken's Raid. 65

of fortifications on the Northern plank road to which the 'De- partment BattaHon' and another (Armory Battalion) were ordered; and it was this company of boys which first became engaged with Dahlgren's column, and which had the most to do with checking it, and perhaps driving it off."

REPORT OF GENERAL LEE.

General Lee says : "A short distance beyond the fortifications I met the boy company, and some, or all, of the other companies of the Department Battalion coming in ; and was told, in answer to my inquiries, that the boy company had arrived first at the intermediate line of fortifications, and, not finding any troops there, had concluded that there was an outer line."

The "boy company," later reorganized "G," which marched out from the city separately, did not go to Green's Farm. It did go beyond the intermediate line of fortifications, was ordered back, and as it was the first company on the field, the battalion, it may be said, "assembled" on it. It took no part v.'ith the Armory Battalion in the affair at Green's Farm, and claimed no more credit for repulsing Dahlgren than is due the other companies, members of the Third. Mrs. Davis's error was owing to the fact, probably, that from the boy company were detailed some of the pickets of the Hick's Farm fight, and one of these was very severely wounded. General Lee's report is a detail of the assembly, after which the battalion was marched into an open field some distance in front of the "breastworks.'"

Having dispersed the Armory Battalion, Dahlgren pressed on^ practically sweeping away everything before him, until he reached Hick's Farm. Here he felt the situation with picket firing and located the battalion, then he formed for a charge, confident of an easy mark, since his men could be distinctly heard jeering: "Ride down the d — d melish." In the absence of Major Henley, who was ill in bed in Richmond, the com- mand of the battalion devolved on Captain John A. McAnerney, of Company A. President Davis, in his "Rise and Fall of the .Southern Confederacy," in a reference to the engagement, in