Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 28.djvu/218

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212 Xontltem ///.Wo/-/,-/// ,s/vV///

COULDN'T COVER THE CRATER.

General Weisiger, in his letter of 1872, to General Mahone, said:

" Perceiving the rapidity with which the enemy were forming, and the immediate danger of being overrun before the Georgians could arrive on the field, he ^Girardey), expressed his assent to my views. I thereupon requested him to state my reasons for so doing, and im- mediately charged with my brigade, which, in gallant style, carried the works as far as my line would cover, which was to an angle nearly in rear of the 'mine,' capturing several hundred prisoners and eleven stands of colors, with a loss to my command in killed and wounded of 283 officers and men."

"Soon after," continues General Weisiger, "the Georgians were sent in, and later in the day^ after I had been compelled to leave the field, the Alabama Brigade, under General Saunders, was sent in, and the remaining portion of our works held by the enemy, cap- tured."

In his letter of 1876, to Captain W. Gordon McCabe, General Weisiger said:

"A short time after reaching the works I was wounded, and left the field with Captain Hinton, my aid. In coming out I found Ma- hone at the same point at which I had left him, in the ' covered way.' I reported to him that I had been wounded, and had turned the command over to Colonel Rogers, of the 6th Virginia Regiment. All of the fighting was over on my immediate front before I left."

From these statements of General Weisiger we must understand that the Georgia Brigade had made its unsuccessful charges before he left the breastworks, and that the fighting, except that done when the Alabama Brigade was sent in, was all over.

[From the Richmond, Va., Times, June 4, 1899.]

Editor of The Times:

Sir In last Sunday's Times in the first part of my article on the Battle of the Crater, the statement of Colonel Rogers was dis- arranged through fault of the type, and it should have read as follows:

Colonel George T. Rogers, of the 6th Virginia Regiment, upon whom devolved the command of the brigade when General Weisiger, after being wounded, retired from the field, in his statement, said: