Today in History:

908 Series I Volume XIX-I Serial 27 - Antietam Part I

Page 908 Chapter XXXI. OPERATIONS IN N. VA., W. VA., MD., AND PA.

In this action Captains [J. E.] Lee and [N. W.] Harbin, of the Palmetto Sharpshooters, were killed. They were brave and promising officers. Lieutenant-Colonel Livington, of the First Regiment; Captain [E. B.] Cantey, commanding Sixth Regiment; Lieutenant [J. C.] McFadden, of the Sixth, and Lieuts. W. N. Major and H. H. Thomson, of the Palmetto Sharpshooters, were seriously wounded.

I commend to your favorable notice Captains Squires and Moody, who handled their guns with a skill, daring, and endurance seldom equaled and never surpassed.

The officers and men of the several regiments are worthy of the highest praise for their coolness and daring in battle and their patient endurance of hunger and fatigue. I regret, however, to be called upon again to refer to the conduct of a large portion of the officers and privates of the First Regiment South Carolina Volunteers in this battle in terms of censure. The commanding officer reports that the regiment entered the fight with 106 men, rank and file, lost 40 men killed and wounded, and at the close of the day but 15 enlisted men and 1 commissioned officer answered to their names. Such officers are a disgrace to the service and un worthy to wear a sword, for I must believe that their desertions of their companies alone induced such conduct upon the part of their privates. If such conduct is not checked by exemplary punishment the efficiency of the regiment will be destroyed.

I am, general, very respectfully, your obedient servant,

JOSEPH WALKER,

Colonel, Commanding Jenkins' Brigade.

Colonel ROBT. JOHNSTON.


Numbers 243. Report of Colonel George T. Anderson, Eleventh Georgia Infantry, commanding brigade, of operations September 2-17.


HDQRS. ANDERSON'S BRIGADE, D. R. JONES' DIVISION,
September 30, 1862.

SIR: I have the honor to forward a report of the action of my brigade in the affairs at Rappahannock, August 23; Thoroughfare Gap, August 28; Manassas, August 30; Turner's Gap, Md., September 14; and Sharpsburg, September 17, with the lists of casualties in each engagement:*

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In the engagement at Turner's Gap, near Boonsborough, Md., my brigade, in conjunction with General Drayton's, was ordered forward to report to Major General D. H. Hill. I found General Hill at the Mountain House, and he conducted us in person to the right of our line, and after giving the necessary orders, left for other parts of the field. Brigadier-General Ripley, the next senior officer, was then left in command of the four brigades, viz, Brigadier General G. B. Anderson's, his own, my brigade, and General Drayton's, in line, General Ripley ordered the whole line to move by the right flank, and about this time the enemy opened a heavy fire on Drayton. I had, by moving to the right under General Ripley's order, become separated at least 300 yards from General Drayton's right, when General R [ipley] came by and ordered me to move by the

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* Portion here omitted is printed in Series I, Vol. XII, Part II, pp. 593-595. The lists of casualties for September 14 and 17 are embodied in Numbers 205.

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Page 908 Chapter XXXI. OPERATIONS IN N. VA., W. VA., MD., AND PA.