“
[
177]
under protest; but the enemy were too close to permit the withdrawal of the guns from
Gregg.”
It was owing to my proximity to that battery, no staff officer could have entered it without my seeing him. It seems not a little strange that
General Harris could have supposed such orders could be properly given without my knowledge, and without passing through me. He further says, “it was a glorious struggle;
Louisiana represented by the noble artillerists, and
Mississippi by her shattered bands, stood side by side together, holding the last regularly fortified line around
Petersburg.”
No reference to any other command but his own brigade and the artillery, and “holding the last regularly fortified line around
Petersburg.”
The line he held was an unfinished line, and was not the last, for he fell back from it to the main
Petersburg lines, near a mile in the rear.
I have previously expressed an opinion of
General Walker's letter; it is certainly the most remarkable of any to be found in all the Battery Gregg literature.
One more quotation will be made from it. “The message to
General Harris was delivered and he accepted the suggestion.”
This was for him to retire from
Whitworth, but the order never reached
Gregg, hence the sacrifice of its gallant defenders.
General Walker certainly claims to have been in command.
In his letter he does not refer to his most important order, the one to
General Harris to withdraw the artillery.
General Walker was not at Battery Gregg about sun up, when I took personal control and direction of the movements of the troops engaged.
As soon as the different bodies — very small — of troops could be brought together they were ordered forward, as has already been stated, to recover the lines, and about one mile was regained.
I did not see General Walker in this advance.
If he was as conspicuous as his letter would make us believe, in the recovery of the artillery, I ought to have seen him. I do not say that he was not present; he may have been; but I do say, what all soldiers know to be true, that I being on the field, he could not have given the orders he claims to have given — his memory, like that of many others, is defective.
And his ordering the four guns to be withdrawn from Whitworth, without either my knowledge or consent, was not only an unofficer like, but an unauthorized and thoughtless act, that no one could have believed possible in an officer of intelligence, who had near four years of active field service, and had been present and a participant in many great battles, and who was at the time chief of artillery of a corps of the army of Northern Virginia.
When the guns were withdrawn from Whitworth the huge forces of
