266 Snlllln'l-ll ll'ixturinll Suriftl/
much disordered by the persistant fighting, General A. P. Hill sim- ply replied, "Let the tired men sleep," a decision which, with the delay of Longstreet's corps the next morning in getting into position, had nearly caused disaster. The Twenty-second bore well its part here, and so on, always maintaining its high reputation, at Spotsylvania, North Anna, Cold Harbor, and through the weary winter of hard- ship and want of 1864-' 65, borne with fortitude, in the trenches at Petersburg; on the trying retreat to Appomattox in April, 1865, where the sad end came. At the surrender there on the Qth, the brigade was under the command of Colonel Joseph H. Hyman, of the Thirteenth Regiment, of Edgecombe county, and numbered all told. J2O men, of whom ninety-two were officers, of the different grades, and 628 were enlisted men. Of the Twenty-second Regi- ment there were paroled ninety-seven men, and the following officers: Colonel Thomas S. Gallaway, Jr., Lieutenant-Colonel W. S- Mitchell. Captains George H. Gardin; Company B; Robert W. Cole, Company E; Gaston V. Lamb, Company I; E. J. Dobson, Company K; Yancey M. C. Johnson, Company L; Columbus F. Siler, Company M. Lieutenants: William A. Tuttle, Company A; Samuel P. Tate, Company B; Andrew J. Busick, Company E; W. C. Orvell, Company E; Calvin H. Wilborne, Company L, Thir- teenth. In Company F, but eight privates " present for duty," were left, and in Company H, but five. Besides those mentioned, several members of the regiment, who were on detached service, were paroled elsewhere.
And so the regiment was disbanded, and its few surviving mem- bers sought their distant homes with heavy hearts indeed at the fail- ure of the cause they had upheld so long and so bravely, undeterred by privation and unappalled by dangers, but still sustained by the parting words of their illustrious chief, and the consciousness of right and of duty well done. No nobler band of men ever offered their all at the behest of the sovereign State to which they owed alle- giance, and to the little squad of them, now " in the sere, the yellow- leaf, ' ' who not have not yet ' ' crossed over the river and rest under the shade of the trees," an old comrade sends warmest greeting and best wishes. Would that his feeble efforts in attempting to preserve some portion, at least, of their record were more worthy of their matchless deeds. Few of them, if any, there w r ere who, when all was over, might not have said, in the words of St. Paul: " I have fought a good fight; * * * I have kept the faith."
And to those of the regiment that larger regiment by far who
