sublimest spectacle I ever saw. He had directed the withdrawal of a portion of the brigade from the murderous concentric fire of the enemy, but seemed to think that they retired too rapidly or in too great disorder. In the midst of the most fatal fusilade I ever witnessed, he rode up to the line and drew his sword, calling to them in a voice that rose above the whole din of battle, to make a stand. His horse reared in an ecstacy of excitement and terror, and then was before us the noblest equestrian statue of the world. The horse poised himself upon his hind feet, beating the air with his fore legs, his nostrils distended, and his eyes rolling fire. The rider sat motionless as marble, and raised to his full height, his left hand grasping the reins like a vice, his right extended to arms-length, pointing forward with a sword that dazzled with its brilliancy, and his whole countenance lighted with a zeal and energy, a power that commanded and inspired all men's hearts.

Yet this was, by no means, his highest quality as a soldier. He was unsurpassed in drill, and as a disciplinarian I have not known his equal. A regiment or a brigade in his hands was a machine, where all parts worked together in thorough efficiency and smoothest harmony. He set an example of industry, promptness and self-control, and created and maintained similar qualities in his subordinates. Nor were his military traits, great as they were, superior or even equal to his social ones. The most obvious of these was his justice. I have never known any one, however a stranger to Gen. Gregg, however unsympathetic with him, who was not impressed, in his every action, with his plain, careful, unswerving, unselfish equity. If he was Ney on the battle-field, he was Rhadamanthus in judgment.

His intellect was first-rate. He handled nothing that he did not master. In addition to the profession of the law, he was intimate with the classics, especially Greek literature and philosophy, with the general branches which constitute an elegant education, and even pushed his inquiries into the less inviting sciences of botany and ornithology. He had an observatory constructed on his house in Columbia, for astronomical purposes.

So far the world knows him. The features of the head, and the harder qualities of the heart, employed in the daily

affairs of life, were patent to all. Around the inner circle of sentiment, natural modesty or prudent reserve had drawn a line impassable to most men. Hence many, who knew him long and admired him highly, were accustomed to regard him as rather deficient in gentle and delicate emotions. I think that I have reason to assert, that no man was more generous, more confiding (when any one at all deserved it), more tender, even, than Gen. Gregg. He was, through life, a most dutiful and attentive son, a most affectionate brother; and in the army he had many of the warmest attachments. After the battle of Cold Harbor I saw him weeping bitterly over the graves of members of his old regiment.

Of his religious sentiments, I know little, personally. But there is every reason to believe that he died a serene and happy Christian. His last message to his sisters was, that they must not grieve for him, but prepare to meet him in heaven!

General Gregg was never married.

His body was interred in the burial-ground of the First Presbyterian Church, at Columbia, South Carolina.

During the night of the 13th, the Confederates threw up small defences at exposed points along the line, and prepared for a renewal of the battle. This brigade felled a few trees and formed a rude breastwork—the first thing of the kind we ever lay behind, if my memory serves me. But the enemy, after lying in a threatening attitude before us for three days, betook themselves, during the night of the 16th, to the north side of the Rappahannock. Fredericksburg and all the positions formerly held by us were re-occupied at once.

A. P. Hill's division, with the rest of Jackson's corps, moved down the Rappahannock. This division was placed in camp near Moss Neck, about eight miles from Fredericksburg, where, towards the close of the month, it erected winter-quarters and turned in to hibernate, after a year of infinite labor and danger.

The brigade suffered, during this campaign, casualties to the number of 2,272. I know that the amount of casualties in an army is not the best test of its courage, for more men are, invariably, killed in flight than in attacking; but

the fact that we did not lose a dozen prisoners in battle, and the fact that we were, with one exception, completely successful (and that exception was a drawn fight), must, coupled with our losses, show that we bore a share in the triumphs of Lee's army, which we, and all who are interested in us, may well be proud of.

CHAPTER VII.

THE BRIGADE IN WINTER-QUARTERS.

THE BATTLE OF

CHANCELLORVILLE, JANUARY-MAY, 1863.

COL. D. H. HAMILTON, of the First regiment, remained in command of Gregg's brigade, from the battle of Fredericksburg until about January 20, 1863. At that time, Col. McGowan, of the Fourteenth regiment, was appointed a Brigadier General in the Provisional Army of the Confederate States, and assigned to the command of this brigade.

BRIG. GEN. SAMUEL MCGOWAN was born in Laurens district, South Carolina, in the year 1820. He graduated, with distinction, in South Carolina College, in 1841, and entered the law office of Hon. T. C. Perrin, at Abbeville C. H. He was admitted to the bar in the following year. Mr. Perrin at once invited him to share his practice. He continued to practice law, with marked success, until 1846, when he entered the celebrated Palmetto regiment and went to Mexico. The President of the United States (James K. Polk) soon appointed him captain on the general quartermaster's staff, in which capacity he served for the rest of the war. He acted as volunteer aide-de-camp to Gen. Quitman, at the storming of Chepultepec and the Garita del Belen, and was complimented for his services on that occasion.

After the Mexican war, he settled at Abbeville C. H., South Carolina, and resumed the practice of law. He married the eldest daughter of Judge D. L. Wardlaw, of that place. He acquired an extensive and lucrative prac

tice, became major general of militia, and represented the District of Abbeville for twelve consecutive years in the lower house of the State Legislature, part of the time as chairman of the Committee on Education, part as chairman of the Committee on the Military. On the secession of South Carolina, in 1860, ten volunteer regiments of infantry were raised for State defence, and divided into four brigades. Gen. McGowan was appointed by the Governor to the command of one of these brigades. He assisted Gen. Beauregard in the capture of Fort Sumpter, in April, 1861. Soon after this, his commission lapsing by the transferral of his command to Confederate service, he joined Brig. Gen. Bonham at Centreville, as aide-de-camp, and served with him in the battles of Bull Run and Manassas Plains. Immediately after these battles, he returned to South Carolina, where he was soon elected lieutenant-colonel of the Fourteenth South Carolina volunteers. On the coast of South Carolina, in the spring of 1862, Col. James Jones, the commander of that regiment, resigned his commission, and Lieut. Col. McGowan was promoted to the colonelcy. He carried his regiment to Virginia in the same spring.

Col. McGowan was in all the battles around Richmond in which the brigade was engaged. He was wounded at Cold Harbor, but did not leave his regiment until after the battle of Malvern Hill. He was recommended for promotion by Gen. Gregg, for his gallant and efficient services in those battles. Gen. Gregg, in his official report of the battle of Cold Harbor, says:

"The Fourteenth regiment, Col. McGowan, now arrived on the field, at the moment it was so greatly needed. Stopping the fire of Crenshaw's battery for a short time, to allow a passage through the guns, I ordered the Fourteenth forward. Tired as they were by two days and three nights of outpost duty, and by a rapid march under a burning sun, they recovered strength at once and advanced, with a cheer, at the double-quick. Leading his regiment to the right of the Thirteenth, and across the hollow, Col. McGowan arrived just in time to repulse the advancing enemy, and prevent him from establishing a battery on the edge of the open ground on the brow of

the hill. The Fourteenth maintained its position gallantly to the end of the battle," etc. Gen. Hill says, of the same battle: "Desperate but unavailing attempts were made to force the enemy's position. The Fourteenth South Carolina, Col. McGowan, (having hurried up from picket duty on the other side of the Chickahominy, and arriving in the thick of the fight,) on the extreme left, made several daring charges." Of Frazier's Farm, Gen. Hill says: "The brigade of Gen. Featherstone having become very much scattered and forced back, Col. McGowan, of the Fourteenth South Carolina, retrieved our ground.'

Col. McGowan was in the campaign of Cedar Run and that of Manassas, in which last battle he was wounded. Returning to his regiment in the autumn, he remained with it during the march from the valley, and was, as already related, at the battle of Fredericksburg. His subsequent actions will be reported as this sketch progresses. He was junior to both Col. Edwards, of the Thirteenth, and Col. Hamilton, of the First. It was in the highest degree complimentary to him to appoint him over two such confessedly gallant and efficient officers.

Of Gen. McGowan's character, as a lawyer and a public man, it is hardly necessary to say more than has virtually been said that he practiced his profession with great success and profit for years before the war, and that he acquired and retained the entire confidence of his constituency. If, in either of these pursuits, there were characteristics more marked in him than all others, they were quickness of apprehension and promptness and energy of action. As a lawyer, he manifested great acuteness in perceiving the prominent points of a case, and ingenuity in putting them together. This facility, assisted by an earnest, clear and powerful delivery, rendered him peculiarly influential with the jury.

He

Similar traits characterized him as a public man. was always plain, earnest, whole-souled in politics, a ready speaker, an affable gentleman, and therefore, at all times, a popular man.

As a military man he was very successful. Although not so rigid and minute in his discipline and management as many others, he excelled most officers of equal rank in