Richmond dispatch. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1884-1903, 1902-10-12

| General Bragg, our commander, rather
! eQualized things in the army in the mat
| ter of looks, for he was far from pre-
possessing. He was very thin; stopped
! had a sickly, cadavcrous, haggard ap-
pearance, rather plain features, bushy
black eyebrows, which united in tuft
! on the top of his nose, and stubby iron
gray beard: but his eyes were bright and
piercing. Poor Bragg had pretty rough
| luck. But to digress moment. What
| I'm going to say hasn't anything to do
with Bragg, but it has with the battle
of Missionary Ridge.
my theory Is that when men get wei.
into fight, with all the fury of battle il
them, that until that moment comes.
which Is apt to come with the best of
troops. when the heat of conflict chills
and dies down, they are most of them
temporarily out of their minds. and q
cool, heaven-born leader can guide them
into doing pretty much what he pleases.
even to shooting tfGir own people. a
friend of mine, who was with the Army
of Northern Virginia, has told me that
in one of the battles in 1862 the Confed-
crate center was pierced by a charge of
Federa!s led by & gallant young officer,
who could not have been more than 50
Or &c years old. His people broke our line
and had our boys pretty well demoralized
the troop fairly worshipped, and, Selling
a battlefiag. called upon our boys to rally.
and rally they did, and with a yell they
struck the Yankee line like bolts from
heaven. It was an inspiring moment and
scene; the old general with the flag on
high, and the boys frantic with enthusi-
asm hurting themselves at the enemy. And
that young Federal ofiicer-the young fell
low who had led their charge-with che
f,~nv -{ Il
away that waving his drawn sword in the
air, he shouted to our men, to our men
mind you. Follow your general. boys!
Give 'em hell'
And the same sort of thing happened
at the battle of Missionary Ridge; at
least I like to think it was that. You
know the Federals got away from their
officers and came tearing up the ridge
with fury that nothing could withstand
Our people in the first line of rifle pits
flung themselves fiat in the bottom Of
the trenches, and the Federals rushed
over and beyond them. Higher up, the
Confederates pulled themselves together
and fought well. but there was no re-
sisting that terrible onslaught. The guns
poured in a rain of metal on that leaping
struggling blue column, pushing madly
forward in little groups that would sink
down for moment to catch breath and
then up again and forward; ever forward
Our cannoneers, with the hell of battle in
them, were working like fiends at their
pieces when the Federals struck them
And, will you believe me, wnen the Yank-
ees swung those captured guns around
and commenced to fire on our troops re-
treating down the other side of the ridge
our cannoneers still crazy with the mad
ness of it all, Joined in and helped them
loaded the guns and fired them at their
own comrades; working as though in a
frenzy. I myself don't believe for a mo-
ment that they knew what they were do
ing
You look incredulous. But you'll find
that very incident mentioned in the re-
port Of one of the Federal officers. as
given in the War Records, and Nicolay
and Hay have referred to it in their Life
of Lincoln.''
All agree it was a pretty good story,
and that it certainly called for some
thing liquid; so away they filed with the
old colonel between them and took a gen
tie nip or two to having met, and to the
hope of meeting soon again.