A study of regimental actions shows clearly that the battalions which faced musketry the steadiest, the longest and the oftenest, were the ones whose aggregate loss during the war was greatest. Fighting regiments leave a bloody wake behind them; retreating regiments lose few men. At Chancellorsville the heaviest losses were in the corps that stood--not in the one that broke.--Fox.
I write you a letter, as I wish to tell you about certain conversations I lately had with an old Confederate--an officer of high rank, and one who, after the war, was on intimate terms with Gen. Lee. It will also contain a copy of a letter received by me some two months ago from a member of Gen. Lee’s staff, and some other things which I think will interest your old soldier readers. In one of the conversations referred to mention was made of the letters of General Cobb (who was killed at Fredericksburg) which have lately been published. In one of these letters General Cobb says that Mr. Davis and General Lee thought there was only one State in the Confederacy, and that was Virginia. In referring to it I remarked that, allowing a little for exaggeration, I did not think he was very far wrong; that I supposed it was much the same in the other States, and that I knew of the persistent injustice, and sometimes even cruelty, with which North Carolina and her troops were treated. He at once came to the defence of General Lee, and said he knew positively that he was not responsible for much of the injustice of which I complained; that in the matter of appointing and promoting officers General Lee often had very little influence. For instance, after Jackson’s death, when the army was reorganized and the two corps made into three, he was bitterly opposed to having A. P. Hill and Ewell for corps commanders. He wished to have Rodes--an Alabamian--to command one of them, and also wished to give a division to Pettigrew and he always said if his divisions and corps had been commanded at Gettysburg by officers of his choice he would have gained that battle. But, said General ----, as the secretary of war was a Virginian, and the influence of Virginia politicians was so all-powerful, both in the executive mansion and the halls of our congress, his wishes were not considered. Though a Virginian, he spoke at length of this baneful influence which festered for four years in Richmond. And just here it may be remarked that probably the most humiliating thing connected with our struggle for independence--more humiliating even than defeat--was the fact that North Carolinians and other free born men should ever have allowed themselves to be at all dominated by a public opinion, which was made by a sorry lot of ignoble bomb-proof hunters. On one occasion I told General ---- about the letter I had received from Col. Venable, and how lie happened to write it. That I had heard reports as to General Pickett, while the assault was being made, which reflected upon his courage, and was disposed to doubt them, as I had heard that he had acted very bravely in his vain attempt to rally his division when routed at Five Forks. I do not think I succeeded in convincing him of this, for I think he believes yet that General Pickett never went near his troops on this the day of their last battle.