Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 4.djvu/363

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Confederte Military History.
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Tarboro, in Calvary churchyard. His wife and three sons survived him, Samuel Turner, William D. and Stephen Lee pender. Gen. G. C. Wharton has related, that in a conversation with A. P. Hill and himself, General Lee said: "I ought not to have fought the battle at Gettysburg; it was a mistake. But the stakes were so great I was compelled to play; for had we succeeded, Harrisburg, Baltimore and Washington were in our hands; and we would have succeeded had Pender lived." It is a tradition that Lee regarded him as the officer who should take the place of Stonewall Jackson. However that may be, General Lee wrote in his official report: "The loss of Major-General Pender is severely felt by the army and the country. He served with this army from the beginning of the war, and took a distinguished part in all its engagements. Wounded on several occasions, he never left his command in action until he received the injury that resulted in his death. His promise and use fulness as an officer were only equaled by the purity and excellence of his private life." Gen. A. P. Hill wrote: "No man fell during this bloody battle of Gettysburg more regretted than he, nor around whose youthful brow were clustered brighter rays of glory."

Brigadier-General James Johnston Pettigrew was born on the shores of Lake Scuppernong, in Tyrrell county, N. C., July 4, 1828, at "Bonarva," the home of his father, Ebenezer Pettigrew, representative in Congress. The family was founded in America by James, youngest son of James Pettigrew, an officer of King William's army, rewarded by a grant of land for gallantry at the battle of the Boyne. Charles, son of the founder, was chosen the first bishop of North Carolina. Young Pettigrew was graduated at the State university in 1847, with such distinction that President Polk, who attended the commencement, accompanied by Commodore Maury, offered the young student one of the assistant professor-