“Head-quarters near Bean’s Station,
“December 17, 1863.
“Major-General McLaws,
“Confederate States Army:
“General,—I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your note of to-day, asking for the particular reason for the issue of the order relieving you from duty with this army. In reply I am directed to say that throughout the campaign on which we are engaged you have exhibited a want of confidence in the efforts and plans which the commanding general has thought proper to adopt, and he is apprehensive that this feeling will extend more or less to the troops under your command. Under these circumstances the commanding general has felt that the interest of the public service would be advanced by your separation from him, and as he could not himself leave, he decided upon the issue of the order which you have received.
“I have the honor to be, general, with great respect,
“G. Moxley Sorrel,
“Lieutenant-Colonel and Assistant Adjutant-General.”
Chief of Staff, First Corps; promoted to Brigadier-General, 1864.
On the 19th, General Law handed in his resignation at head-quarters, and asked leave of absence on it. This was cheerfully granted. Then he asked the privilege of taking the resignation with him to the adjutant-general at Richmond. This was a very unusual request, but the favor he was doing the service gave him some claim to unusual consideration, and his request was granted.
The Law disaffection was having effect, or seemed to be, among some of the officers, but most of them and all of the soldiers were true and brave, even through all of the hardships of the severest winter of the four years of war. Marching and fighting had been almost daily occupation from the middle of January, 1863, when we left Fredericksburg to move down to Suffolk, Virginia, until the 16th of December, when we found bleak winter again breaking upon us, away from our friends, and dependent upon our own efforts for food and clothing. It is difficult for a soldier to find words that can express his high appreciation of conduct in officers and men who endured so bravely the severe trials they were called to encounter.
Orders were given to cross the Holston River and march for the railroad, only a few miles away. Before quitting the fields of our arduous labors mention should be made of General Bushrod R. Johnson’s clever march of sixteen miles, through deep mud, to Bean’s Station on the 13th, when he and General Kershaw attacked and pushed the enemy back from his front at the Gap before he could get out of it. Honorable mention is also due General Jenkins for his equally clever pursuit of the enemy at Lenoir’s Station; Brigadier-General Humphreys and Bryan for their conduct at the storming assault; Colonel Ruff, who led Wofford’s brigade, and died in the ditch; Colonel McElroy, of the Thirteenth Mississippi Regiment, and Colonel Thomas, of the Sixteenth Georgia, who also died in the ditch; Lieutenant Cumming, adjutant of the Sixteenth Georgia Regiment, who overcame all obstacles, crowned the parapet with ten or a dozen men, and, entering the fort through one of the embrasures, was taken prisoner; and Colonel Fiser, of the Eighteenth Mississippi, who lost an arm while on the parapet. Not the least of the gallant acts of the campaign was the dash of Captain Winthrop, who led our once halting lines over the rail defences at Knoxville.