take, and asked authority to do so. The message was delivered to General Longstreet, who referred the messenger to me, we being together. I authorized the attempt, but desired the general to look carefully first."[1] General Hill’s report is virtually the same, for he says: "He (Early) soon reported to General Longstreet in person that there was a Yankee battery in his front on the edge of a wood, and asked leave to take it. General Longstreet approved the move, and directed me to accompany it."[2] Generals Hill and Early then rode to the front and examined the ground in front of them, declares Early in his report. General Hill also says in his report, "I reconnoitered the ground as well as I could."[3]
General Hill evidently understood that this brigade was to wage just such a battle as the right was then making a rear guard engagement to gain time, and that in addition it was to prevent the enemy on Longstreet’s left from flanking him, and that the battery the brigade was to assail was not to be carried by direct assault but by "getting in rear of the battery by passing through the woods to its left. " This was the plan he had in view, for he says, "I directed this wing (the Fifth and the Twenty-third North Carolina) to halt as soon as the stream was crossed and undergrowth penetrated, to get the whole brigade in line, and sent my adjutant, Major Ratchford, to General Early to know whether he had gotten over. We had not halted five minutes (waiting to reform the line) when I heard shouting and firing, and a voice which, above the uproar, I took to be General Early’s, crying, Follow me! " The advance of that part of the brigade made it necessary for Hill to direct "the right wing to move rapidly forward, and I went myself in
—
