an jeae Sie Lun eos sparsity im aan meta t 5 Sa acta tS nnt pemereignier 282 Norra Carotina Troops, 1861-65. Old Capitol Prison at Washington with Miss Belle Boyd, the famous Confederate spy, were exchanged in two weeks and took part in the Gettysburg campaign. THE GETTYSBURG CAMPAIGN. In no period of the war was the Southern heart more buoy- ant or did hope gleam brighter or larger than when it was known that Lee’s victorious army had invaded the North. All things now seemed possible. But at no period of the struggle was hope really more fallacious and deceptive. Southern Independence had already been lost. Chancellors- ville was its grave. With Gettysburg won and Vicksburg lost, Southern Independence could not have been attained. But Chancellorsville won—decisively and overwhelmingly won—Lee could easily have detached a force to relieve Vicks- burg. Chancellorsville must have been a decisive and over- whelming victory but for the fatal blunder of one man—a man brave and otherwise competent. At 5:30 p. m. Satur- aay evening, 2 May, 1863, Jackson held the fate of Hooker’s army in the hollow of his hand. His subordinates had but to move forward when and where he had distinctly ordered, and within an hour a blow would have been struck the enemy, which, followed up with a tithe of J ackson’s energy, could have ended only in Hooker’s undoing. This unfortunate of- ficer was General Colquitt, commanding a Georgia brigade, to whom had been assigned an exceedingly important posi- tion on Jackson’s right. The duty assigned this wing was to strike the routed Eleventh Corps on the flank and rear and not only destroy or capture it, but what was even more im- portant, assail the other commands then open to attack. But this duty was never performed. Colquitt saw some horsemen in Federal uniform on his right front. The apprehension of an attack on this flank—an impossible thing—sud- denly overcame him. He halted his regiments and changed front and also forced Ramseur’s brigade to do likewise. Having the right of way over the “Stonewall” brigade and four regiments of Stuart’s cavalry his halt halted them. This change of front and the purposeless marching it entailed, kept inactive seventeen regiments of excellent troops for an TWENTY-THIRD REGIMENT. 233 hour—an hour as big with fate as battle field ever saw. For in that hour the torrent of Federal rout passed by to a place of safety. Hooker, or his subordinates, made new dis- positions and brought up their powerful artillery. When at length the seventeen regiments came up and the Confederates moved forward the golden opportunity had passed; rout and disorder had with the foe given place to order and determi- nation. Jackson, realizing the exigency of the new turn in the battle, went forward to inform himself and fell. - But to return to the Gettysburg campaign. Leaving the vicinity of Fredericksburg 4 June, 1863, we marched, via Culpepper Court House and Front Royal, to Berryville, Va. Here the army captured the camp equipage of 1,500 men who fled without a battle. Thence to Winchester, where 3,000 of Milroy’s men were taken and marched past our com- mand. At Martinsburg we cut the Baltimore and Ohio Rail- road and pressing forward, waded the Potomac at Williams- port on Monday, 15 June. Passing through Chambers- burg we reached Carlisle, the northern limit of our invasion, about 27 June. The Twenty-third acted as provost guard at several places on this march. At Carlisle we rested for several days in the Federal barracks. Here many of our jaded, weary boys, drank too much United States Government whiskey and a battle with a Georgia regiment, for the time likewise drowning their weariness, was narrowly averted. Many of the Carlisle people knew General Iverson, he having been quartered in the barracks there when a Lieutenant in the Federal army. As Lee threw our corps (Ewell’s) north to Carlisle, threat- ening Harrisburg, the capital of Pennsylvania, he concen- trated his other two corps, A. P. Hill’s and Longstreet’s, at Chambersburg on his line of communications. Stuart having taken his cavalry on his famous, but fatal, raid around the Federal army, Lee was long in complete ignorance of the ene- mies whereabouts. Orders had already been given for the march on Harris- burg, when on the night of the 29th Lee, then at Chambers- burg, learned from a scout that the enemy were on his right