Reunion of Virginia Division, A. N. V. Association. 197
mand of the line to Hampton, with headquarters at Yorktown,* and on the 23d, General Benjamin Huger was assigned to the command of the troops at Norfolk. f
It appears in a communication from the Adjutant-General head- quarters of the Virginia forces, Colonel R. S. Garnett, to Colonel F. H. Smith, of the Virginia Council, that on the 30th May, as nearly as could be ascertained, there was a total of thirty six thousand two hundred troops assembled in Virginia.;]; General Beauregard was called from Charleston at this time, and on the 31st May he was as- signed to the command of the troops on the Alexandria line.§ On the 5th June, General T. H. Holmes was sent to Fredericksburg, and directed to assume command of the troops in that vicinity, || and on the 8th, General R. S. Garnett was ordered to Staunton to com- mand the troops operating in Northwestern Virginia.**
The first battle in Virginia, and, indeed, the first battle of the war in which there were killed and wounded — for in the bombardment of Fort Sumter miraculously there were no casualties ff — the first battle in which infantry were engaged — took place on the loth June at Bethel Church, between Yorktown and Hampton, on the Peninsula. It was, it is true, a small affair in comparison with the great battles which took place afterwards, but it did great credit to the First North Caro- lina regiment and the Richmond Howitzers, which fought it, and deservedly made much reputation for Colonel D H. Hill and Major G. W. Randolph, who commanded there under Colonel Magruder.JI A iQ'w days after, another small affair occurred at Vienna, on the Alex- andria line, in which the First South Carolina, Colonel Maxey Gregg, and Captain Del Kemper's battery, attacked a railroad train contain- ing General Schenck with a part of the First Ohio, under Colonel McCook, who afterwards became a distinguished Federal general. §§
- Records War of Rebellion, Volume 11, page 865. \Ibid, page 867.
X Ibid, page 895. § Ibid, page 896. |! Ibid, page 907. ^'^ Ibid, page 915.
ft Excepting Assistant-Surgeon S. W. Crawford, United States Army, after- wards Major-General, who had volunteered to serve the guns in Fort Sum- ter, and who was slightly wounded by a piece of masonry struck off by a shell.
t+ Records War of Rebellion, Volume 11, page 91, 92; War History Old First Virginia; History Richmond Howitzers.
§? Records War of Rebellion, Volume 11, page 128.
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