Southern Historical Society Papers, Volume 27.
Reverend J. William Jones, Ed.

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‘ [56] with directions not to leave until sunrise. The march was continued at a very early hour, and my command reached the hill overlooking Gettysburg early in the morning. Just after I arrived General Lee sent for me, as the head of my column was halted within a hundred yards of where he was, and I went at once and reported. General Lee was sitting on a fallen tree with a map beside him. After the usual salutation, General Lee remarked: “General, I wish you to place your division across this road,” pointing on the map to about the place I afterward went to’ (the Peach Orchard).

McLaws said further that ‘if the corps had moved boldly in position by 8 or 9 o'clock in the morning, as it could have done,’ the attack would probably have succeeded. (Southern Historical Society Papers, February, 1879, pages 68 and 76.)

Another fragment of testimony was added in the following year— 1880—when Hood's volume, entitled ‘Advance and Retreat,’ was issued from the press. This volume contained the entire letter from Hood, of which Longstreet had printed only an extract, and it now appeared that Hood made his statement concerning the time of the arrival of his troops ‘from memory,’ on June 28, 1875, twelve years after the morning of July 2, 1863. It may, at this point, be noted further that Hood's phrase concerning the time of the conversation held by Lee, Longstreet, Hill and Hood is this: ‘During the early part of the same morning;’ presumably before the arrival of Hood's troops.

In 1883 the Century Magazine began to publish an extended series of articles written by both Federal and Confederate actors in the great tragedy of Gettysburg. E. P. Alexander set forth the movements of the Confederate artillery on July 2d and July 3d, in such complete detail that all subsequent writers from that time forward could do nothing else than adopt his statements. Kershaw likewise told how he led a brigade of McLaw's division at the very head of Longstreet's column on the morning of July 2, 1863. （Battles and Leaders of the Civil War, Vol. III, page 331.) These articles in the Century anticipated by a few years the publication of the official reports of the participants in the battle, in Volume XXVII of the official records.

Kershaw's report concerning the movements of his brigade on July 1st and afterwards, was thus set forth: ‘We marched to a point on the Gettysburg road, some two miles from that place, going into camp at 12 P. M. The command was ordered to move at 4 o'clock on the morning of the 2d, but did not leave camp until about sunrise. ’