message after message having gone forward, was not permitted to advance until 4 P. M. He had been finally held in reserve by General Johnston, in case Longstreet was in danger of being overpowered, and who now was supposed to be overwhelmingly engaged. But, alas, the truth of history is, that eight brigades of Longstreet's thirteen, had not even been engaged.

Colonel B. W. Frobel, of the engineers, was on Whiting's staff, and he writes (in 1868) of one of the rare mistakes made by that great soldier, Joseph E. Johnston, as follows:

"Generals Johnston and Whiting were following immediately after Whiting's Brigade. As the brigade reached the road, near the railroad crossing, I was sent to halt it. On returning, after doing this, I joined the generals, who were riding toward the crossing. General Whiting was expostulating with General Johnston about taking the division across the railroad-insisting that the enemy were then in force on our left flank and rear. General Johnston replied:

'Oh, General Whiting, you are too cautious.' At this time we reached the crossing, and nearly at the same moment the enemy opened an artillery fire from the direction pointed out by General Whiting. We moved back up the road near the small white house; Whiting's Brigade was gone. It had been ordered forward to charge the batteries which were firing on us.'

"The brigade was repulsed, and in a few minutes came streaming back through the skirt of woods to the left of the Nine-Mile Road near the crossing. There was only a part of the brigade in this charge. Pender (commanding a regiment) soon rallied and reformed those on the edge of the woods. General Whiting sent an order to him (Pender) to reconnoitre the batteries, and if he thought they could be taken, to try it again. Before he could do so, some one galloped up, shouting, Charge that battery!' The men moved forward at a double-quick, but were repulsed, as before, and driven back to the woods.'

General Whiting immediately arranged for a combined attack by the brigades of Whiting, Pettigrew and Hampton.

"Alas, for the mistake in not reconnoitreing the position first, before crossing the railroad, as General Whiting had suggested, and then attacking before General Sumner's Corps could reinforce Couch, who was holding the Federal line. For by the time the three brigades could be brought into action, many, with little or no ammunition left, unknown to the Confederates in the thick woods, General

Sedgwick's leading division, of Sumner's Corps, with Kirby's Napoleon guns, had arrived, and a new and immensely superior enemy was encountered by the devoted band in the assault. Sedgwick says, on arriving, We found Abercrombie's Brigade, of Couch's Division, sustaining a severe attack and hard pushed by the enemy." Again and again the Confederates attacked, but to meet bloody repulse. General Smith says:

[Battles and Leaders of the Civil War, Vol. ii, p. 247.] “Believing that Whiting had, on the right, as much as he could well attend to, I went with Hatton's Brigade to the extreme front line of Hampton and Pettigrew in the woods, and soon learned that General Pettigrew had been wounded, it was supposed mortally, and was a prisoner. General Hatton was killed at my side just as his brigade reached the front line of battle, and in a very few minutes General Hampton was severely wounded. In this state of affairs, I sent word to General Whiting that I would take executive control in that wood, which would relieve him for the time of care for the left of the division, and enable him to give his undivided attention to the right.

"In the wood, the opposing lines were close to each other, in some places not more than twenty-five or thirty yards apart. The firing ceased at dark, when I ordered the line to fall back to the edge of the field and re-form. In the meantime Whiting's Brigade and the right of Pettigrew's had been forced back to the clump of trees just north of Fair Oaks station, where the contest was kept up until night."

Longstreet says, in writing on June 7th:

The failure of complete success on Saturday, I attribute to the slow movements of General Huger's command. * * * I can't but help think that a display of his forces on the left flank of the enemy would have completed the affair, and given Whiting as easy and pretty a game as was ever had upon a battle-field."

In the cold, calm light of facts now developed, it is not difficult to see that the slowness was on the part of the writer of that report, who should, by Johnston's orders, have moved at daybreak on the 31st, and who failed to move at all, as ordered by General Smith, on the morning of June 1st.

Although not permitted to gather the fruits of their unyielding courage, Smith's Division, under Whiting, prevented Sumner's

forces from reaching Keyes' at Seven Pines (a matter of supreme importance), and deprived Keyes and Heintzelman of two brigades and a battery of their own troops.

It has been mentioned that during the events narrated, General J. J. Pettigrew was wounded very seriously. I cannot forbear, in this presence where so many dear friends of General Pettigrew remain, to record for future history an unpublished letter from Pettigrew to Whiting, fraught with the pure patriotism and exquisite self-sacrifice characteristic of both heroes, who sleep in death together for the cause they served.

I hardly need remind you that this (like his report) was written by an amanuensis, and exhibits in its feeble signature the exhaustion of one wounded almost unto death.

"June 4, 1862.

"EAST CHICKAHOMINY-ENEMY'S CAMP.

"MY DEAR GENERAL:

"I am very much ashamed of being in the enemy's hands, but without any consent of my own. I refused to allow myself to be taken to the rear after being wounded, because from the amount of bleeding, I thought the wound to be fatal; it was useless to take men from the field, under any circumstances, for that purpose.

“As I was in a state of insensibility, I was picked up by the first party which came along, which proved to be the enemy. I hope you know, General, that I never would have surrendered, under any circumstances, to save my own life, or anybody's else, and if Generals Smith or Johnston are under a different impression, I hope you will make a statement of the facts of the case.

"I am extremely anxious to be exchanged into service again; I am not fit for field service, and will not be for some time, but I can be of service in any stationary position with heavy artillery.

"I would be glad that an immediate effort be made for my exchange by resigning my place as Brigadier General and accepting the place of Junior Lieutenant of artillery. If I am ordered to Fort Sumter, I can do good duty. I do not suppose there will be any objection to make this exchange, and I make this proposition because we have no Brigadier General to exchange, and I suppose after I lay down this rank there will be no disposition to hold me personally, beyond any other officer.

"I hope my troops did well, although deprived of my leadership. "Very truly, J. J. PETTIGREW."

"(Signed.)

'After some weeks of inaction," says Major Fairly, of General Whiting's staff, writing to the speaker, "the march, ostensibly to reinforce Jackson in the Valley, was taken up by General Whiting's Division. I was afterwards told that it occurred in this way: Early in June, when all was still quiet along the lines, one day General Whiting rode over to the quarters of General Lee, and learning that he was out, sat down at his desk and wrote on a slip of paper, 'If you don't move, McClellan will dig you out of Richmond,' and left it, asking Col. Chilton, I think, to call the General's attention to it upon his return. It was not long before a courier came to Whiting's headquarters with a note or message asking General W. to come to army headquarters. On his arrival, the General said, 'General Whiting, I received your note; what do you propose?' Whiting then developed the plan of appearing to reinforce Jackson's victorious army in the Valley, thus threatening Washington, and causing stoppage of troops then about to leave Washington to reinforce McClellan, and Jackson, by forced marches, was to fall on his right, north of the Chickahominy River, and destroy him before the powers at Washington could discover the 'ruse de guerre,' and send him reinforcements.

General

"General Lee approved, but said, 'Whom can I send?' Whiting replied, 'Send me.' 'Ah, but I can't spare you; you command five brigades.' General Whiting, with the unselfish patriotism which always characterized him, said, 'I will take my two old brigades and go,' to which Lee replied, 'When can you go?' 'I am ready now,' said Whiting. Oh!' said General Lee, you can march Thursday.' This occurred, I think, on Tuesday And so he did.'"

"We lay at Staunton two days. The next morning we began a forced march to meet Jackson's corps at Brown's Gap, where we took the lead and kept it. The rapidity of the march may be judged when I say, that the teamsters were ordered to water their horses before starting, and not to allow them to stop for water until night, and I was instructed to stay by the column and enforce the order. I could but sympathize with the teamsters, but horses must suffer that our men might be fed on the march, and so kept up to their work. 'Our division led the advance of Jackson's Corps, and reached the field of Gaines' Mill, or Cold Harbor, about 5 o'clock in the afternoon of the 27th June, 1862, and, if my memory serves me right, on Friday, and none too early, for I learned that every division of ours north of the Chickahominy had been thrown against McClellan's

right, held by Fitz John Porter, and all had failed; and we soon knew why. He had twenty thousand United States regulars behind the strongest field fortifications that I had ever seen, both from construction and position."

The battle of Gaines' Mill one of the most sanguinary conflicts of the Seven Days' Battle, occurred June 27th, and General Stonewall Jackson thus reports of two of the brigades of General Whiting's division (although the General was only a Brigadier in actual rank). Jackson says:

"Dashing on with unfaltering step, in the face of those murderous discharges of canister and musketry, General Hood and Col. E. M. Law, at the head of their respective brigades, rushed to the charge with a yell. Moving down a precipitous ravine, leaping ditch and stream, clambering up a difficult ascent, and exposed to an incessant and deadly fire from the entrenchments, these brave and determined men pressed forward, driving the enemy from his well-selected and fortified position. In this charge, in which upwards of a thousand men fell, killed and wounded, before the fire of the enemy, and in which fourteen pieces of artillery and nearly a regiment were captured, the Fourth Texas, under the lead of General Hood, were the first to pierce these strongholds and seize the guns."

The Sixth North Carolina participated in this famous charge. General E. M. Law, commanding one of these brigades under Whiting, describes the action fully in the "Southern Bivouac (1867). He says:

"By 5 P. M., on the 27th June, the battle of Gaines' Mill was in full progress all along the lines. Longstreet's and A. P. Hill's men were attacking in the most determined manner, but were met with a courage as obstinate as their own, by the Federals who held the works.

"After each bloody repulse, the Confederates only waited long enough to reform their shattered lines, or to bring up their supports, when they would again return to the assault. Besides the terrific fire in front, a battery of heavy guns on the south side of the Chickahominy was in full play upon their right flank.

"There was no opportunity for manoeuvering or flank attacks, as was the case with D. H. Hill, on our extreme left. The enemy was directly in front, and he could only be reached in that direction. he could not be driven out before night it would be equivalent to a