/'//,/ ,// /',-/ /,', ,////./. 131
of Colonel Shorter's Regiment, and fully twenty minutes more in replenishing ammunition and reforming the brigade, and certainly twenty minutes more in marching to the river bank, which we ivarhed before sundown.
This would tend to fix 4 o'clock as very approximately the hour of I'rnitiss' surrender.
This riigagnnent, by far, was the most warmly contested up to that period of the war, and hardly surpassed in severity by any bat- tle which followed, was a square standup fight at close range and without cover by men, very few of whom had before that day been in battle. The Confederate loss was 1,728 killed, 8,012 wounded, 950 missing, more than one-third of the force actually engaged.
The Federals report their loss at 1,700 killed, 7,495 wounded, and 3,022 captured.
General Prentiss and the lamented General W. H. L. Wallace and the brave men they commanded need no enconium; they bore the brunt of the battle from daylight until 4 o'clock. Then cut off and isolated, they made a desperate charge in an effort to escape, driving everything before them until met by my brigade, which they fought with desperation until they saw that surrender was inevitable.
[From the Richmond (Va.) Times, May 10, 1896.]
FIGHT AT FRONT ROYAL.
A VINDICATION OF HISTORICAL TRUTH, BY ONE WHO KNOWS.
Facts from a Diary of Events, Substantiated by Official Reports of Actors in the Scenes.
Editor of the Times :
SIR, In consequence of the frequent misstatements made, some of which have found their way into public print, concerning the fighting in the vicinity of Front Royal on the 23d of May, 1862, and the capture of the Federal garrison at that place, I have frequently been requested by some of my old comrades to prepare for publica- tion a correct statement of the occurrences of that eventful day. From various causes I have from time to time postponed a compli- ance with these requests until the present, but, having been recently
