VIRGINIA DIVISION

OF THE

ARMY OF NORTHERN VIRGINIA ASSOCIATION.

On the 2d day of November, 1871, the "Virginia Division of the Army of Northern Virginia Association" was organized at a meeting held in the Hall of the House of Delegates, in the State Capitol, at Richmond. A suitable constitution and by-laws were adopted, and the following officers elected:

President-General FITZHugh Lee.

Vice-Presidents-General Edward Johnson, General James A.

Walker.

Secretaries-General James H. Lane, Colonel Joseph Mayo, Jr. Treasurer-Major Robert Stiles.

Executive Committee-General William B. Taliaferro, General William H. Payne, General D. S. Weisiger, Colonel F. W. M. Holliday, and Colonel James H. Skinner.

SECOND ANNUAL MEETING.

The second annual meeting was held in the State Capitol, Richmond, on Thursday evening, October 31st, 1872, when, in the absence of the orator elect (General John B. Gordon, of Georgia, who was detained by sickness in his family), there were stirring speeches by the President, General Fitzhugh Lee, Colonel Joseph Mayo, Jr., General J. A. Early, and General W. H. Payne.

The following officers for the ensuing year were elected:

President-General FITZHUGH Lee.

Vice-Presidents-General Edward Johnson and General J. A.

Walker.

Executive Committee-General William H. Payne, Sergeant J. V. L. McCreery, Lieutenant John E. Laughton, Colonel Walter K. Martin, Colonel Thomas H. Carter.

Thursday evening, October 30th, 1873, a large crowd assem-bled in the State Capitol at Richmond. After an appropriate prayer by Rev. Dr. Minnigerode, General Fitzhugh Lee made brief but stirring remarks, and appropriately presented as the chosen orator of the occasion, Colonel Charles S. Venable, the tried and trusted staff-officer of General R. E. Lee, who was greeted with enthusiastic applause, and was frequently interrupted with applause as he delivered the following address:

Charles.

ADDRESS OF COLONEL C. S. VENABLE.

Comrades and Friends-Warmly appreciating the kindness and good-will of the Executive Committee in extending to me the honor of an invitation to address you on this occasion, and recognizing the duty of every Confederate soldier in Virginia to do his part in the promotion of the objects of this Association, I am here in obedience to your call. Fellow soldiers, we are not here to mourn over that which we failed to accomplish; to indulge in vain regrets of the past; to repine because, in accepting the stern arbitrament of arms, we have lost; nor merely to make vain-glorious boast of victories achieved and deeds of valor done. But we are met together as citizens of Virginia, as American freemen (a title won for us by the valor and wisdom of our forefathers), with a full sense of our responsibilities in the present and in the future which lies before us, to renew the friendships formed in that time of trial and of danger, when at the call of our grand old Mother we stood shoulder to shoulder in her defence. More than this: we are met to preserve to Virginia—to the South and to America-the true records of the valor, the constancy and heroic fortitude of the men who fought on field and flood under the banner of the Southern Cross. With this view, I have thought it not inappropriate on this occasion to give a brief outline of some facts and incidents of the campaign of the Army of Northern Virginia from the Wilderness to Petersburg, which may be of some little use as a memoir to some future seeker after historic truth. I am aware that in this I am in danger of repeating much that has been told by different biographers and historians; but my desire is to give correctly some incidents of which

I was an eye-witness in that wonderful campaign, and to state in brief outline some facts-accurate contemporary knowledge of which I had the opportunity of obtaining—and to present these in their proper connection with the statements of high Federal authorities. These incidents will enable us, in some measure, to appreciate that self-sacrificing devotion to duty which characterized our great leader, and will serve to show how worthy the men of that army, which he loved so well, were of his confidence and leadership. And here let me say that no man but a craven, unworthy of the name of American freeman, whether he fought with us or against us-whether his birthplace be in the States of the South or in the States of the North-would desire to obliterate a single page or erase a single line of the fair record of their glo

rious deeds.

When General Lee set out from Orange Courthouse on the morning of the fourth of May to meet the Army of the Potomac, which moved at midnight of the third of May from Culpeper, he took with him Ewell's corps (diminished by General Robert Johnston's North Carolina brigade, then at Hanover Courthouse, and Hoke's North Carolina brigade of Early's division, which was in North Carolina) and Heth's and Wilcox's divisions of A. P. Hill's corps, leaving Anderson's division of Hill's corps on the Rapidan heights, with orders to follow the next day, and ordering Longstreet to follow on with his two divisions (Kershaw's and Field's) from Gordonsville. So, on May 5th, General Lee had less than twenty-six thousand infantry in hand. He resolved to throw his heads of columns on the Old turnpike road and the Plank road, and his cavalry on the Catharpin road on his right, against General Grant's troops, then marching through the Wilderness to turn our position at Orange Courthouse. This was a movement of startling boldness when we consider the tremendous odds. General Grant's forces at the beginning of the campaign have been given as more than one hundred and forty thousand of all arms, or about one hundred and twenty thousand infantry, and all of these, except Burnside's corps of twenty thousand, were across the river with him on the 5th. General Lee had less than fifty-two thousand men of all arms, or forty-two thousand infantry-fifteen thousand of which, under Longstreet and Anderson, a day's march from him, and the two North Carolina brigades, under Johnston and Hoke, which reached him, the one on the 6th of May, and the other on the 21st of May-at Spotsylvania Courthouse. And here in the beginning was revealed one great point in General Lee's bold strategy, and that was his profound confidence in the steady valor of his troops, and in their ability to maintain themselves successfully against

very heavy odds—a confidence justified by his past experience and by the results of this campaign. He himself rode with General A. P. Hill at the head of his column. The advance of the enemy was met at Parker's store and soon brushed away, and the march continued to the Wilderness. Here Hill's troops came in contact with the enemy's infantry and the fight began. This battle on the Plank road was fought immediately under the eye of the Commanding-General. The troops, inspired by his presence, maintained the unequal fight with great courage and steadiness. Once only there was some wavering, which was immediately checked. The odds were very heavy against these two divisions (Heth's and Wilcox's), which were together about ten thousand strong. The battle first began with Getty's Federal division, which was soon reinforced by the Second corps, under General Hancock. Hancock had orders, with his corps and Getty's division of the Sixth corps, to drive Hill back to Parker's store. This he tried to accomplish, but his repeated and desperate assaults were repulsed. Before night Wadsworth's division and a brigade from Warren's corps were sent to help Hancock, thus making a force of more than forty thousand men, which was hurled at these devoted ten thousand until 8 o'clock P. M. in unavailing efforts to drive them from their position.

Ewell's corps, less than sixteen thousand strong, had repulsed Warren's corps on the Old turnpike, inflicting a loss of three thousand men or more, and two pieces of artillery. Rosser, on our right, with his cavalry brigade, had driven back largely superior numbers of Wilson's cavalry division on the Catharpin road. These initial operations turned Grant's forces from the wide sweeping march which they had begun, to immediate and urgent business in the Wilderness. The army which he had set out to destroy had come up in the most daring manner and presented itself in his pathway. That General Lee's bold strategy was very unexpected to the enemy, is well illustrated by the fact recorded by Swinton, the Federal historian, that when the advance of Warren's corps struck the head of Ewell's column, on the morning of the 5th, General Meade said to those around him, "They have left a division to fool us here, while they concentrate and prepare a position on the North Anna; and what I want is to prevent these fellows from getting back to Mine Run." Mine Run was to that General doubtless a source of unpleasant reminiscences of the previous campaign. General Lee soon sent a message to Longstreet to make a night march and bring up his two divisions at daybreak on the 6th. He himself slept on the field, taking his headquarters a few hundred yards from the line of battle of the day. It was his intention to relieve Hill's

two divisions with Longstreet's, and throw them farther to the left, to fill up a part of the great unoccupied interval between the Plank road and Ewell's right, near the Old turnpike, or use them on his right, as the occasion might demand. It was unfortunate that any of these troops should have become aware they were to be relieved by Longstreet. It is certain that owing to this impression, Wilcox's division, on the right, was not in condition to receive Hancock's attack at early dawn on the morning of the 6th, by which they were driven back in considerable confusion. In fact some of the brigades of Wilcox's division came back in disorder, but sullenly and without panic, entirely across the Plank road, where General Lee and the gallant Hill in person helped to rally them. The assertion, made by several writers, that Hill's troops were driven back a mile and a half, is a most serious mistake. The right of his line was thrown back several hundred yards, but a portion of the troops still maintained their position. The danger, however, was great, and General Lee sent his trusted Adjutant, Colonel W. H. Taylor, back to Parker's store, to get the trains ready for a movement to the rear. He sent an aid also to hasten the march of Longstreet's divisions. These came the last mile and a half at a double quick, in parallel columns, along the Plank road. General Longstreet rode forward with that imperturable coolness which always characterized him in times of perilous action, and began to put them in position on the right and left of the road. His men came to the front of disordered battle with a steadiness unexampled even among veterans, and with an élan which presaged restoration of our battle and certain victory. When they arrived, the bullets of the enemy on our right flank had begun to sweep the field in the rear of the artillery pits on the left of the road, where General Lee was giving directions and assisting General Hill in rallying and reforming his troops. It was here that the incident of Lee's charge with Gregg's Texas brigade occurred. The Texans cheered lustily as their line of battle, coming up in splendid style, passed by Wilcox's disordered columns, and swept across our artillery pit and its adjacent breastwork. Much moved by the greeting of these brave men and their magnificent behavior, General Lee spurred his horse through an opening in the trenches and followed close on their line as it moved rapidly forward. The men did not perceive that he was going with them until they had advanced some distance in the charge; when they did, there came from the entire line, as it rushed on, the cry, "Go back, General Lee! Go back!" Some historians like to put this in less homely words; but the brave Texans did not pick their phrases. won't go on unless you go back!" A sergeant seized his bridle