the attack. He omits to give a very significant part of General Long's letter, which tends to show that some order must have been given for an attack early on the morning of the 2nd. The question, therefore, rests on an issue of veracity between General Longstreet and General Pendleton. The latter was General Lee's chief of artillery, who had very important duties to perform in regard to posting the artillery for the impending battle, and it was very natural that General Lee should communicate to him the time when the battle was to open, and what orders had been given in regard thereto. It was not necessary to communicate the same facts to the staff-officers, whose statements are given. General Pendleton professes to have obtained the information as to the order from General Lee himself, and I am disposed to side with him on the question of veracity, just as I am disposed to side with Colonel Taylor on the direct issue of veracity raised by General Longstreet with him in regard to the order for the use of Hood's and McLaws' divisions in the attack made on the 3d.
General Lee's statement of his orders in regard to this latter attack would imply that the orders originally given in regard to it were to make it with Longstreet's whole corps, and is therefore corroborative of Colonel Taylor's statement.
It is to be observed here that General Longstreet has heretofore denied the authenticity of General Lee's detailed report, first published in the Historical Magazine, New York, then in the Southern Magazine, Baltimore, and lastly among the Southern Historical Society Papers from another copy, which confirms the genuineness of the first. The article now given under the sanction of his name quotes partly from the preliminary report given in the Appendix to Bates' History of the Battle of Gettysburg and partly from the detailed report; but it appears that he thinks the latter was written in a different spirit from that in which the preliminary report was written, and being a "somewhat critical account of that battle," from it his "critics get all their points against him." In speaking of "Ewell's inaction," he says:
"Having failed to move at 4 o'clock, while the enemy was in his front, it was still more surprising that he did not advance at 5 o'clock with vigor and promptness, when the trenches in front of him were vacated, or rather held by one single brigade, as General Meade's testimony before the Committee on the Conduct of the War states."
