Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 35.djvu/245

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The Battle of New Market.
231

THE BATTLE OF NEW MARKET, VA., AGAIN,


With Further Account of a Volunteer Night Attack
at Newport News.


The editor finds that there are exceptions to the article, pp. 155-158, and counter statements. He yields to no one in due admiration for the signal display of valor and veteran soldiery demeanor of the boy cadets at New Market an exemplification which Napoleon himself would no doubt have acknowledged.

The article for the volume had already been printed, but the following corrections made in the Times-Dispatch of January 19, 1908, must be given:

"Ch. M. W., Co. B., V. M. I. Cadet Corps," thus corrects the statement made by Captain Bruce, that "the Cadets gave way," and gives tribute to his martyred boy comrades, Cabell, Atwell, McDowell, Steward, Jefferson, Jones, Crockett and Wheelwright.

Further, the Cadet Battalion fired directly into the battery, while Captain Bruce states his regiment, the 51st, fired "obliquely" into; and that the Cadets did capture it.

As to the percentage of loss of the 51st Regiment, which Captain Bruce states as "five per cent." the Cadet percentage was twenty-five per cent.

As to halts of the Cadets, charged by Captain Bruce one is accounted for by an intervening ravine, when "the line of the Cadets becoming necessarily disarranged." Colonel Scott Shipp, in command, gave the order to halt and dress into line. "The second halt was somewhere about one hundred yards in front of the six-gun battery," spoken of by Captain Bruce.

"Following the order to halt the order was given to charge, and soon after, in this charge, Colonel Shipp was wounded.

In the same issue of the Times-Dispatch appeared the following corroboration of the above, with some further matters of interest:

BRUCE'S ERRORS.

Not meaning to detract one scintilla from the glory of Captain