Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 14.djvu/199

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.

Reunion of Virginia Division, A. N. V. Association. 193

and about Richmond, and charged with the organization of the vol- unteers assembHng at the call of the Governor.*

On the 27th, the First Virginia regiment, with the exception of Company A (Richmond Grays), which had been sent to Norfolk, Companies E (Richmond Light Infantry Blues) and F, which had been sent to Fredericksburg, were marched to the camp of instruc- tion at the Fair Grounds. f

On the 2ist April, Major Thomas J. Jackson, then a professor in the Military Institute at Lexington, came down, at the summons of the Governor, in command of the cadets, and was stationed with them at Camp Lee, as the encampment at the Fair Grounds was called. On the 27th he was commissioned colonel of the Virginia forces, and was ordered to proceed without delay to Harper's Ferry and assume command of that post ; to muster into the service of the State such companies as might be accepted under his instructions, and to organ- ize them into regiments or battalions, uniting as far as possible com- panies from the same sections of the State, j; Colonel Jackson arrived at Harper's Ferry on Monday, the 29th, and relieved General Har- per, of command the next day, the 30th.

On his arrival, he found assembled at Harper's Ferry two thou- sand one hundred Virginia troops, with four hundred Kentuckians, consistmg of Imboden's, Rogers's, Alburtes's, and Graves's batteries of field artillery, with fifteen guns of the highest calibre; eight com- panies of cavalry, without drill or battalion organization, and nearly without arms, and a number of companies of infantry, of which three regiments, the Second, Fifih and Tenth, were partially organized, while the rest had no organization. There was no general staff, no hospital nor ordnance department, and scarcely six round§ of am- munition to the man. § It was out of this disorganized mass that Jackson was to make the Stonewall brigade — the basis of the Army of the Shenandoah — of the Second corps — Jackson's corps of the Army of Northern Virginia.

On the 2gth April, Colonel J.'B. Magruder reports to Colonel Gar- nett. General Lee's Adjutant-General, that there are three light artillery batteries now together at the artillery barracks — Baptist

  • Records War of Rebellion, Volume 11, page 783.

fWar History Old First Virginia, page 7. + Records War of Rebellion, Volume 11, page 787. I Dabney's Life of Jackson, pages 188, 189.