GEN. JAS. J. ARCHER.
CAPT. F. S. HARRIS, NASHVILLE, TENN.

The December VETERAN, containing picture and sketch of Gen. Archer, has a few inaccuracies concerning this very remarkable man.

Gen. Archer was born at Belair, Maryland, about the year 1825. After finishing his collegiate education he read law, but upon the passage of the Tenth Regiment bill by Congress, he accepted a commission as captain from Jefferson Davis, then Secretary of War, and was assigned to duty in Oregon, where he remained until his resignation to enter the Confederate Army. Mail facilities in this new country at that time were not good, there being but one mail every three months. Considerable progress had been made by the South in preparing for the war when he first definitely learned of it. He immediately resigned but awaited its acceptance before he started South. He was so bold and outspoken that he experienced great difficulty in reaching Louisville. He came on to Gallatin, Tennessee, where he accidentally became the guest of Col. Bailey Peyton, who, although a Union man, entertained him courteously, offering every facility to reach the South.

He tendered his services to President Davis and was at once appointed colonel of the Fifth Texas infantry.

When Gen. Hatton fell in the lead of his brigade at the battle of Seven Pines, Col. Archer was appointed Brigadier-General to succeed him. From this on he became practically a Tennessean, and his heart was with the Tennessee boys. The old brigade, known ever afterward as "Archer's Tennesseans," was composed of the following regiments of infantry: First Tennessee, Col. Peter Turney; Seventh Tennessee, Col. John F. Goodner; Fourteenth Tennessee, Col. Wm. A. Forbes; Nineteenth Georgia, Col. W. W. Boza; and the Fifth Alabama Battalion, Maj. Smith. Later on the Nineteenth Georgia was transferred and the Thirteenth Alabama (Col. Fry) substituted. And later still, that glorious little band of Marylanders, the Second Maryland Battalion was added, than whom no better soldiers ever lived.

In a little over a month after assuming command, Gen. Archer had led his brigade through the seven days' battles around Richmond, commencing on the 27th of June, 1862, at Mechanicsville. Then, in rapid succession, Cold harbor, Frazier's Farm, Turkey-neck Bend, and Malvern Hill. He led them at Cedar Run, the three days' hard fighting at Manassas, also Chantilla and Ox Hill; then to Harper's Ferry, Sharpsburg, and Shepardstown, besides innumerable smaller engagements, and wound up the memorable year of 1862 at Fredericksburg, when his brigade held the extreme right of old Stonewall's Corps, and with the assistance of Pelham's horse artillery, met and repulsed the fearful onset of Gen. Meade. It was in this battle that Col. Peter Turney received the fearful wound, at the head of his "Hog Drivers" from which he has never recovered.

He again led them at Chancellorsville, and was at their head when his brigade led the advance of Lee's army at Gettysburg. While developing the enemy's strength, Gen. Reynolds, of the Federal army (who was killed that day by the Tennesseans), flanked him on both wings, capturing a number of prisoners including Gen. Archer himself. He effected an exchange from Johnson's Island and assumed command of his old brigade in the summer of 1864, in front of Petersburg. The rigors of a northern prison were too much for him, his health rapidly declined and he died in Richmond a few months later, and now sleeps in beautiful Hollywood, near his great commander, Gen. A. P. Hill, the worthy successor of old Stonewall.

The make up of Gen. Archer was enigmatical. His exterior was rough and unattractive, small of stature and angular of feature, his temper was irrascible, and so cold was his manner that we thought him at first a Martinet. Very noncommunicative, and the bearing and extreme reserve of the old army officer made him, for a time, one of the most intensely hated of men.

No sooner, however, had he led his brigade through the first Richmond campaign, than quite a revolution took place in sentiment. The estimate of a soldier is invariably gauged by his conduct in battle. Beneath his rough exterior beat a warm heart. But his estimate of men was always from the standard of a soldier. His judgment of them was infallible. For some officers he had a contempt, while there were privates for whom he never failed a warm hand-shake. He had none of the politician or aristocrat, but he never lost the dignity or bearing of an officer. While in battle he seemed the very God of War, and every inch a soldier according to its strictest rules, but when the humblest private approached his quarters he was courteous.

There was no deception in him and he spoke his mind freely, but always with the severest dignity. He won the hearts of his men by his wonderful judgment and conduct on the field, and they had the most implicit confidence in him. He was dubbed "The Little Game Cock." He was held in the highest regard by Generals Harry Heth, A. P. Hill, and Stonewall Jackson. He was devoted to his brigade, and refused a major-general's commission rather than be separated from this brigade.

He estimated the officers and men with unerring judgment and he had recommended as his successor, in case of his own death or removal, Geo. A. Howard, whose rank at that time was a first lieutenant. He had the highest regard for Capt. John Allen and Lieut. J. H. Moore, and great confidence in Col. S. G. Shepard and a number of others, not only of the Seventh, but the other regiments of his command.

He told me once, when on the picket line in front of Petersburg, that if he had the power to officer his brigade as his judgment dictated he could duplicate Balaklava.

When in trouble before him his men knew equal and exact justice would be given them. The old brigade loved him devotedly. Gen. Archer was never married, and in the presence of ladies was timid and retiring.

W. M. McCall, Esq., who was a Lieutenant Company E., Seventh Tennessee,
now of Humbolt, Tenn., writes as follows:

I was much gratified at seeing photograph in last VETERAN of Brig. Gen. James J. Archer, (of blessed memory), who commanded the now famous Tennessee Brigade in Lee's Army.

Your correspondent is in error in some details. Archer was Colonel of the Fifth Texas Infantry, not the Fourth. At the date of his taking charge of the Brigade it was composed, as I now remember of the First, Seventh, and Fourteenth Tennessee Infantry, Nineteenth Georgia, and Fifth Alabama Battalion. The Thirteenth Alabama Infantry was attached to our Brigade in place of the Georgia Regiment after Fredericksburg.

On the first day at Gettysburgh, Archer's and Jo Davis', Mississippi Brigades, brought on the fight. They were sent in to "feel" of the Federals, and they "felt" of us a little. They had concealed a Brigade in the tall, uncut wheat at right angles with Archer's right, and, swinging around, captured Archer and nearly the entire right wing of the Seventh Regiment.

We did not "drive the Federals into the town," it taking all of A. P. Hill's corps to do that. After the capture of Archer, the Seventh Regiment, and, as I now remember, the entire Brigade, was sent over to the extreme right of Lee's Army to watch the Federal cavalry, threatening that point, and remained there all day and that night.

Archer was sent to Johnson's Island after Gettysburgh, where he remained until the summer or fall of 1864, when he and other Confederate officers were sent by the War Department at Washington, to Charleston harbor, and put under fire of our own guns. He remained there until exchanged at that point a few months thereafter; but he contracted the disease there that ended his life a short while after his exchange. I was at Johnson's Island, a guest of the Federals myself at that time.

While Archer was there he gave his gold watch and $150.00 to a yankee soldier to permit his escape. The fellow let him out, but had notified the authorities, who, having placed a skirmish line out about a mile from the shore on the ice, recaptured him and brought him back. But the yankee kept the money and the watch - A "yankee trick," sure enough.

Archer was one of the bravest, truest of men. He had no sense of fear in battle.

I see him now at Fredericksburg. The Federals, four lines deep, had broken our lines, and as I went out (making about thirty miles an hour) I met Archer going in with that band of heroes, the Fifth Alabama Battalion, numbering about one hundred and fifty men. In attempting to rally my company on the hill, I saw Archer and the Fifth Battalion surrounded by Federals; yet standing like a rock they held the yankees at bay until D. H. Hill's division came up. The last thing that I saw of Archer at that time, he was on his little black, a Federal soldier had the mare by the bridle-bit, the mare was rearing straight up, and Archer's heavy cavalry sabre was poised over his head. I never learned what the fate of that one yankee was, only surmised.

Peace to the ashes of James J. Archer.

Other friends have written about the brief article referred to, but the points have been fully expressed in the foregoing.

From "The Confederate Veteran" magazine
Transcribed by James W. Martin

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