best and bravest fell among the killed and wounded, among whom were Lieutenant-Colonel Harrison, of the 34th; Captain Barksdale, of the 59th, and Lieutenant Barksdale Warwick, of my staff, who died with a smile of the guadia certaminis on his face, struck whilst waving his sword and shouting "Charge! Charge!"

On the night of the 31st we fell back across Hatcher's Run to Sutherland's on the S. S. R. Road and pressed forward after Hunton to reinforce Pickett at Five Forks. On Sabbath morning the 1st April, we reached Church Crossings, and were kneeling to God, under the prayers of Chaplain W. E. Wiatt of the 26th, when an order announced the defeat of Pickett at Five Forks and that we must fall back to the Appomattox. On Sunday at noon we reached the Namozine creek, and lodged our right on its banks. The enemy came up immediately, whilst we were throwing up breast works, and Sheridan's cavalry sounded the bugle notes of charge until night-fall, from a heavy wood in our front. This was but a feint to deceive Fitz Lee's dismounted cavalry on our left. At dark the enemy pressed decidedly upon him, when he called for reinforcements from the infantry. We ordered the 59th down the breast-works immediately, leaped them before reaching the cavalry, formed at right angles to the breast-works on the enemy's left, and scattered them at the first volley. That night we crossed the Namozine, and the next day, the 2nd of April, crossed the Winticomack creek, and as we reached the defile at Deep creek near Mannsboro, Sheridan's cavalry in position at the defile, opened a galling fire upon our advanced guard. The 59th had been ordered to assist in bringing up the rear, and thus we consisted then of the 26th under the younger Perrin, the elder having been badly shattered to pieces at the charge at Howlett's the year before; the 46th under Captain Abbott, Colonels Harrison and Wise being both wounded and exempted, and the 34th under Colonel J. Thomas Goode. Immediately upon the fire we turned the head of our column obliquely to the right through an open field to a curtilage of houses, where the 26th and 46th were posted, and the 34th was deployed to the open ground on our right, to decoy a charge upon it passing the front of the other two regiments behind the houses. The decoy succeeded. The enemy had dismounted, tied their horses on the other side of the creek some 600 yards off, and charged on foot obliquely by the houses, upon the 34th, until they came close in front of the 26th and 46th which burst upon their right flank so sudden and so sharp that they broke and fled, and were so pressed by the three regiments, they could

not reach their horses and mount in time to prevent a severe loss of men and horses. Here we were halted for the entire line to pass, with orders to bring up the rear. Thence we passed on by Amelia C. H., Jetersville and Deatonsville, zig-zagging from right to left, and from left to right and skirmishing the whole way until we came to the forks of Sailor's creek, near Jamestown, and the High Bridge, on the 6th April. What was left of our division, Wise's brigade of Virginia, and Wallace's of South Carolina, were posted on the left of Pickett's division, then reduced to an inconsiderable number by the stampede at Five Forks. Corse's brigade and Ransom's had stood their ground there well, and suffered very much. Whilst in position at the forks of the road when the baggage train passed to the right and the artillery to the left, we were ordered to detail two regiments to guard the left of Wallace's brigade; the 26th and 59th were detailed, and when the order came as it did, to join Pickett on his left and attack the enemy, we had but two regiments, the 46th and 34th, to go into the fight with. We came in half rifle range of the enemy near the east fork of Sailor's creek on our left; Wallace's brigade came up between our two regiments and the east fork, when we found that the enemy were coming up on our left, and we were annoyed by an enfilading fire. In our front was a curtilage of houses, dwelling, kitchen, barns, stables and tobacco-houses reaching a half mile, and with a large graveyard inclosed by a rough stone wall, all filled by the enemy who were pouring in a fire so galling that we were compelled to lie down in the copse of pine where we were posted. The enemy had broken the forces under General Ewell, and were then pouring down upon our left. Under these circumstances, we detailed two companies from the 34th under Captain William Jordan, of Bedford county, to drive off the sharpshooters who were enfilading our left, which duty he did with signal efficiency, and Colonels Abner Perrin and Tabb coming up at the time to the left of Wallace, they were ordered to support Jordan with the 26th and 59th Regiments and to push the enemy until they came opposite their right flank in our front. The moment they did so we charged in front upon the stone wall and houses, and Perrin and Tabb and Jordan charged upon the enemy's right flank, and we broke them thoroughly, and drove them some one and a half to two miles, unassisted by either the forces of Wallace or Pickett, when Colonel (R. P.) Duncan, of General Anderson's staff, ordered us to fall back to Pickett's rear to form at right angles to his line and to retreat to the road of our march. We had hardly formed and began

to move in his rear before Pickett's whole command stampeded, leaving our artillery in the enemy's hands, and they were exploding our caissons in a lane in our front. We pressed forward across a branch of the west fork of Sailor's creek, and were surrounded by the enemy entirely on our rear and left and half way down our front. Wallace's Brigade broke and fled to a woods on our right. We pressed up a hill in our front, halted behind a worm fence on the crest, fired three volleys to the rear, and retreating again, moved quickly down the hill, putting it between us and the enemy in our rear, and poured three volleys obliquely to the left and front, broke the enemy and got out. Here the 26th showed its exemplary drill. Perrin gallantly rallied his regiment, and upon its nucleus we formed and seized the whole brigade in sight of the broken enemy. After rallying and forming, we poured three volleys into the woods where Wallace's Brigade were ensconced, and it raised a white flag and came out to us and formed and marched with us safely off the field, and gained our road past the enemy. Anderson, Pickett and (B. R.) Johnson had left the field before we cut through and gone on to the high bridge and Farmville. At one o'clock at night we reached the high bridge and found it shut down. After getting over it we marched a mile or more on towards Farmville, and bivouacked until the morning of the 7th. We were overcome by exhaustion, and without food or refreshment of any kind. There was no water but the pools, as red as brick dust, in the soil of that region. Colonel J. Thomas Goode, Captain Jordan and myself washed or cooled our faces and hands in the same pool the next morning, and neither of us had a handkerchief or towel to wipe with, and consequently the paint of the red water remained on our faces and at the edges of our hair; and during the night a soldier of the 34th found me sleeping without a blanket or coat on the chilling earth-the enemy had captured my orderly and body-servant, with my cloak and two of my horsesa wounded man at Sailor's creek had escaped on my riding horse proper-and the noble private, whom I don't know, wrapped me, more dead than alive, in his coarse gray blanket, pinning it on with a wire pin, both of which I have now, and the gold of Ophir could not buy them! With a face painted like an Indian, with the gray blanket around me, and with the Confederate Tyrolese hat on—not off, as ridiculously stated—and muddy all over, I put myself on foot at the head of the two brigades and marched on the railroad to near Farmville. There an officer of General Lee met me and ordered us to move to him, then in sight on his gray. Turning the head of the

column to the right, down the railroad embankment, we marched across the open field to where he was sitting in his saddle, with General B. R. Johnson on his horse a little in the rear. The latter had fled from Sailor's creek and reported me killed and the whole division cut to pieces and dispersed. As I moved up with the two brigades I saw that General Lee was suppressing a laugh. I knew he had a sub-vein of humor, which he was hardly concealing when he saw my appearance-that of a Comanche savage. He was right; I

was savage and looked like an Indian, and waited not to be accosted, when I exclaimed with an oath: "General Lee, these men shall not move another inch unless they have something more to eat than parched corn taken from starving mules!" He smiled with great

blandness, and said:

"They deserve something to eat, sir. Let them, without taking down the fence, move to the trees on yonder hill, and they shall be filled for once at least. And you, General Wise, will pause here a moment with me." When the brigades passed on he turned to me and said: "You, sir, will take command of all these forces." There were no organized forces but the two brigades I came up with, in sight; there were thousands of disorganized troops in all directions without order or command. I protested that I could not take such a command. I had no horses. He ordered me to get a horse and make all the stragglers and disorganized men fall into my ranks. I told him that it would put my brigade hors du combat, to have to play field marshal for such a disorganized mass. He said: "You must obey your order, sir." I replied: "I will, sir, or die a trying, but I must first understand it. It is not the men who are deserting the ranks, but the officers who are deserting the men who are disorganizing your army. Do you mean to say, General Lee, that I must take command of all men of all ranks?" looking at General B. R. Johnson. Lee then understood my meaning, turned his head the other way to smile, said: “Do your duty, sir." And I first went to breakfast and then to the work which wound up at Appomattox on the 9th, when and where I signed the paroles of more than 5,000 men besides those of my own brigade. It was this which gave rise to the ridiculous story lately published in the newspapers of the day and in Harper's Magazine. The correspondent, as usual, blundered upon enough of fact to make fiction murder truth, and make me ludicrous. It was the proudest moment of my life, and I am glad to explain its true history.

Without intermission I was with that brigade in whole and in part

from April, 1861, until April 9th, 1865, under the eye of General Lee from the first to the last scenes of the war, and we parted with each other on parole at Appomattox. Alas! how few were there at last of those who were comrades with us at first. There were less than 1,000 left of the 2,850 who returned from Charleston in April, 1864, Less than half were paroled of 2,400 who charged at Howlett's. Their last, after fighting in nineteen battles, was their most glorious charge; and they fired the last guns of the infantry at Appomattox. Of this and other commands, Gloucester's dead were piled on every battle field: Page, Taylor, Fitzhugh, Puller, Ellis, Robins, Hibble, Baytop, Millers, Roane, Bridges, Banks, Norton, Amory, Cooke, Edwards, Griffin, Massey, Newcomb, Bristow, Jones, Barry, Ware, Simcoe, R. B. Jones, Kenan, Pitts, Pointer, Leigh, Jeff Dutton, Elijah Dutton, Vincent Edwards, Dunstan, Hughes, Evans, Cary, Thos. Robins, Freeman, John Roane, Jenkins, Hobday, Albert Roane, Ransome, White, J. W. Robins, Woodland, Cooper, Summerson, Williams, Hogg, Sparrow, T. J. Hibble, Alex. Dutton, John Edwards, Rich, Dutton again, Dunbar Edwards, Gwynn-I cease to call the roll, for they are absent by fifties and hundreds, and not a man answers to his name!

In this succinct, didactic narrative, not half justice could be done to these martys to civil liberty. Their lives and deaths were the most beautiful epic poems. They will be sung and celebrated as long as liberty lasts; as long as a love for it sighs for its loss and their sacrifice. There was nothing sordid or selfish in the high motives or objects of their death struggle. The chief injustice done to their memories is in seeming to think or say that they fought and died in vain for some mere material property, profit, advantage, or possession. Nothing could be more unjust to them, or more untrue in fact. They were no hirelings; they were no men of expediency. They loved virtue for virtue's sake, honor for honor's sake, justice for justice's sake, truth for truth's sake, right for right's sake. They never stooped to ask: "Will it pay?" They had faith, feelings, affections, sense of the intellect to know their rights, and knowing them, the courage to maintain them through all hazards, and to the last extremity, they had a sense of honor, a sense of self-respect, a sense of wrong, a sense of duty and a physiical and moral power of resistance to the tyranny of usurpation and oppression. Their physical power was expended in the war, but their moral power still exists unimpaired, except by those who call their consecrated cause "A Lost Cause;" except