[485]
After retiring from the advanced position on the Plank road, you placed the Twelfth Mississippi regiment and the Sixteenth Mississippi regiment in Battery Gregg, and the Nineteenth and Forty-eigth regiments in Battery Whitworth.
There was no other organized command in Battery Gregg save the two regiments mentioned, and a section of artillery.
There may have been good and true men from other commands who aided in the defence, but they were without organization.
Lieutenant-Colonel James H. Duncan, of the Nineteenth regiment, was in command of the two regiments of your brigade in Battery Gregg.
The assertion that “Harris's brigade should not be mentioned in connection with the defence of Battery Gregg” under the facts, I consider unwarranted and unjust, coming as it does, from fellow comrades of the Army of Northern Virginia.
Yours truly,
R. R. Applewhite, Captain Twelfth Mississippi regiment. General N. H. Harris, Vicksburg, Mississippi.
