A Reply to:
THE FIRST TENNESSEE AT GETTYSBURG
Capt. J. B. Turney, Company K, of that regiment

Capt. F. S. Harris writes from Alabama:

I regret the necessity of a reply to Capt. Turney's article on Gettysburg in the December VETERAN. It needs none only for the fact that it appeared in the official organ of the U. C. V. (United Confederate Veterans), every word of which we want future historians to know is true. But I cannot remain silent at the implied slur against the balance of that grand old regiment, the First Tennessee, whose dead are on every battlefield from Seven Pines to Appomattox; nor the implied accusations against those grand old regiments, the Seventh and Fourteenth Tennessee and Fifth and Thirteenth Alabama Battalions.

Capt. Turney's recollection is so sadly at fault both on the first and third days that it is unnecessary to begin to point out. I have been on that field twice since, in 1899 and 1900. On both occasions I found the lines definitely located. It is true the First Tennessee was next to Pickett, but Capt. Turney's recollection plays him a prank again. Next to the First was the Fourteenth Tennessee. He places the Seventh next, as he says he "cleared the way for Capt. Moore's company to go over," and some of the Fifth Alabama Battalion. Every one in the brigade knows that the Fifth Alabama was on the extreme left of the brigade.

I cannot remember as well as Capt Turney, but I recollect the gallant Col. George and Capt. Moore far to the front; and I know Col. Fite was captured near there. Col. Lockard, of the Fourteenth Tennessee, was wounded crossing the wall. The Thirteenth and Fifth Alabama Battalions drove to the front as far as any man, and Col. Shepard, Capt. Norris, Capt. John Allen, Bill Young, and others went to the front as far as any Confederate soldier. And they got out with Capt. Allen badly wounded.

But the most serious trouble arising from the publication in so reputable a journal as the VETERAN is that it contradicts that which Archer's and Pettigrew's men have given thirty years to establish. Newspaper soldiers of Pickett's, immediately after the battle, commenced to claim all the glory of this the greatest of the world's battles.

Capt. Bond, of North Carolina, Col. J. H. Moore, before mentioned, and others have established the facts from war records: Fitzhugh Lee's Life of Gen. R. E. Lee and other reliable data. The stones are set at Gettysburg, marking each position attained so different from Capt. Turney's recollection that one would not recognize that gory field from his article.

The most unkind shot of all is therefore from the archer in our own camp.

In publishing the foregoing the VETERAN emphasizes afresh its faith in the integrity of any Confederate soldier or officer who was himself in battle. Their devotion to truth and to principle exceeds their partiality for any command over others. We all know by experience that no two will see things alike.

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

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