[339] conduct of his men on the first day of the battle of Gettysburg was magnificent, and their loss was terrible. General Heth being wounded, Pettigrew took command of the shattered division, and on the third day led it in the immortal charge against the Federal position on Cemetery hill. A remnant of his brave men gained the Federal lines, but were crushed back by sheer weight of lead and iron. At Gettysburg his brigade suffered the greatest loss in killed and wounded of any brigade in the army, over 1,100 out of a total of 3,ooo. Though painfully wounded in the hand, Pettigrew kept the field, and was on duty during the painful retreat which followed. On the morning of July 14th, Heth's division reached the Potomac at Falling Waters, and while Pettigrew was receiving orders from Heth to remain there in command of the rear guard, a body of about forty Federal cavalrymen, who had been allowed to approach under the error that they were Confederates, dashed recklessly into the Confederate troops, demanding surrender. General Pettigrew's horse took fright and threw him to the ground. Rising he drew his pistol, and was about to take part in the skirmish, when he was shot and mortally wounded. He was borne tenderly across the river and to a hospitable home at Bunker Hill, Va., where he yielded his life with Christian resignation, July 17, 1863.
Brigadier-General Gabriel J. Rains
Brigadier-General Gabriel J. Rains was born in Craven county, N. C., June, 1803, the son of Gabriel M. Rains, and was educated at West Point, with graduation in the class of 1827, of which Leonidas Polk was a member. He was given a lieutenancy in the Seventh infantry, and during his service in the West, mainly in Indian Territory, won promotion to captain by the close of 1837. Participating in the Florida war against the Seminole Indians, he defeated a large body of the savages near Fort King, April 28, 1840, but was so severely wounded that an announcement of his death was widely published.
