The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1904-06-05


responsible for the failure of Pitcketts
charge than was Gen. Rodes, who was
still further to the left and under or
| ders not to fire q gun.
"At ] o'clock the signal guns were
heard, and for nearly two hours, 1
never listened to SO terrific Il cannon-
ade. That ended, the order was given
by the gallant Marshall-alas! that
it should have been the last he ever
gave-to advance, and, with steady
tramp the division advanced, the order
being guide right with Archer's Ten
neSee Brigade on the right, and rest
ing on Pickett's left, then Pettigrew 8
Brigade, then Davis Mississippi Bril-
gade, and then a Virginia Brigade
whose commander / do not remember
but whose command was afterwards
united with Archers Brigade under
Gen. Walker. We advanced, received
their fire, and still advanced. / never
saw men behave more gallant, nor do
/ believe men ever did,
Before the fateful charge the en-
emys guns in front of Pickett h. /
been Silenced, / think, by AleXander'S
batteries, and the distance the Viz
ginians had to march was owing to the
configuration of the ground consider
ably less than that of Heth'S Divis-
ion, of which Pettigrews Brigade con-
H" is a candid writer, and makes
this statement, which is in most COM
| mendable and striking contrast with
What some ignorant Virginia writer's
have exhibited:
| Pickett was more successful than
| we were. He broke the line, and for
| q moment held the front works; but
that he and Pettigrew were both fairly
beaten and driven back, however,
| painful may be the confession, is q
| fact that cannot be denied. Had both
divisions broken through the line. they
would have been driven out as Pickett
was, and the triumph have been as
| short lived.
To attach blame to Pettigrew's Bril-
gade for the failure is as absurd as it
/ would be to charge the South with a
| want of manhood, because she failed"
He wrote as he say it but it is not
certain that he was correct as to Pick.
| cit. | have aforetime often published
| the losses of Picket and Pettigrew at
| Gettysburg. Before hunting statistics
| again, l must copy at length from
the fine paper of III" Pointing to
Virginian reproaches and misrer resen
t4tions this able North Carolinian
wrote in 1867
why was it that, when victory
perched upon our banner, they forgot
that North Carolina troops were there,
and when disasters blasting breath
rent his silken folds, they are ready
| to say You did it, Is it not enough
! that the bones of her sons lie on every
! battlefield in Virginia. Is it
not enough that the body found near
est Parters deadly battery on Malvern
| HILL was a member of Vances 26th
| -. c.; and that at Gettysburg, under
| Pettigrew, this same regiment, in the
| first days fight, out of eight hundred,
.cst in killed and wounded five hun
dred and, eighty-its gallant Colonel
Burgwyn dying there, his Lieutenant
Colonel Lane falling wounded with
/ him? Is it not enough that Leaven
| thrope was wounded there. and the
! noble youth Ross breathed his last
! there? And in the final charge, when
Fettigrew bled, Marshall and Richard
son died, and the bleeding Parks and
Crudup were captives led to their des-
! olate cells, when the noble Graves, the
Douglass of them all was captive
made, to pine and wear his life away
/ on Johnsons cold and dreary isle,
! with Powell, Davis, Watson, Evans,
/ Whiting Newsom, Drake, Joyner, and
! d host of other namesA unknown to
/ Virginia, but dear to the loved ones
| at home, and who suffered all the
! horrors of that terrible prison? Was
/ not this enough? Could not this pro-
pitiate MIR. McCabe, Jr., of Virginia?
! Nc, the cry is still for more.
But we ask not to be spared, for the
/ sake of the living or dead; we only
ask to be reported fairly.
THAT we failed to carry the heights
/ of Gettysburg is a matter of history;
I that we poured out the best blood of
! the State in the effort to do so is a
+ matter of history, too"
/ Some one probably Virginian,
/ wrote for a children's magazine in the
I North. It undertook to tell the young
! readers of the charge in the third day,
/ and, Capt. w. r. Bond, in his most
/ mertorious and beautiful book
pickett or Pettgrew"-say that "a
! comparison was drawn between the
/ troops engaged, and language some
thing like the following was used:
THOSE on the left faltered and fled.
/ The right behaved gloriously. Each
| body acted according to its nature,
for they were made of different stuff.
! The one of common earth, the other
CT finest clay. Pettigrews men We're
/ North Carolinians, Pickett's were SUI
! perb Virginians." Such lying is not
| only disgraceful but coWardlv. North
Carolina lost a greater per centage
than any State in the United States.
| North Carolina lost more men in killed
| and WOUNDED than Virginia and sever
al other States lost in all, and yet some
f those States had q greater military
| population. The Confederate Hand
Pook gives Virginia 1861 in 1860;
Tennessee, 1888 Georgia, 111.O05,
and North Carolina, 1880. In 1850,
vote for Governor was 112,5O0; only
whites voting. l doubt if there were
/ 100000 voting population. because
| tens of thousands probably voted who
We're over the military age. But her
/ old men and boys fought in that glo-
rious war on the part of the South,
and hence its 126, 900 soldiers in the
war. I knew several boys who went
| in and fought from fifteen to seven
teen years old. The other States had
of military population as follows: AL
| ALBANIA 99,967 Arkansas, 65,231;
| Florida. 1879; Louisiana, S3,456;
| Mississippi, 1925; South Carolina,
| IS, 046: Texas 92,145--Total of eleven
! States. 1.064,193. The Border States
Lad: kentucky, 1S0,5S9; Maryland,
162, II 5. Missouri, 232,7S1-Total $751;
0s5. Kentucky furnished to the Yam
kee army, 23,103; Louisiana, 24,052:
| Maryland, Sis. In all the Federals
/ had from the South 1S6,017, and for
/