562 Nort Caro.ina Troops, 1861-’65.

fact that the men to the very end, when the four hundred
and forty-two of MacRae’s Brigade were surrendered at Ap-
pomattox, felt that they were still Pettigrew’s men.*

The brigade now fell successively to Major J. T. J ones, of
the Twenty-sixth; Lieutenant-Colonel W. J. Martin, of the
Eleventh, and Colonel Thomas C. Singletary, of the Forty-
fourth North Carolina, until early in September, when Gen-
eral W. W. Kirkland was placed in command. Changes in
the staff were: Captain Louis G. Young, A. A. G., Charles-
ton, S. C.; Lieutenant Albert H. Stoddard, A. D. C., Sa-
vannah, Ga. ; Captain Fred Nash, Ordnance Officer, Twenty-
seventh North Carolina.

The Army of Northern Virginia retired slowly before the
“Army of the Potomac, and there was no fighting of import-
ance until early in October, 1863, when General Lee assumed
the offensive; but Meade would not stand, and retreated to-
wards Washington, D. C. Lee followed and on the 14th,
overtook him at Bristoe Station, where an ill-judged attack
was made by A. P. Hill against the Federal Third Corps,
supported by the Second. In this rash enterprise, Kirk-
land’s Brigade played a conspicuous part and behaved with
great gallantry. It charged and dislodged the enemy from
his shelter behind a railroad entrenchment, but outnumbered
and flanked the position could not be held, and Meade es-
caped. The brigade lost in this affair 270 killed and
wounded, and some prisoners. General A. P, Hill, in his
eagerness to prevent Meade’s escape, imprudently ordered
the charge. In this charge, General Kirkland was so severely
wounded that he was obliged to relinquish the command of
the brigade for several months.

General Lee now withdrew to his former lines and win-
tered on the Rapidan. While the army was here General
Kirkland returned to the command.

* J. Johnston Pettigrew has the reputation of being the most
brilliant student and ablest man ever graduated at the University of
North Carolina. He took the highest honors in a class of exceptional
ability (1847). By a singular coincidence there sat side by side, in al-

habetical order, the following: Pettigrew, John Pool (afterwards U.
g Senator), M. W. Ransom (also U.S. Senator), A. M. Scales (Gov-
ernor), and Thos. E. Skinner the distinguished Baptist divine. Dr. E.
Burke Haywood was also in this class.—Ep.