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world. The conduct of Cincinnatus \vas not more patriotic than that of Edmund Ruffin, and side by side in the niche of fame will their names be recorded by every patriotic heart."
From the New York Post :
".SHOT AN'D HKMP. A Charleston I )ispatch states that the 'first shot from Stevens' battery was fired by the venerable Edmund Ruffin, of Virginia.' A piece of the first hemp that is stretched in South Carolina should be kept for the neck of this venerable and bloodthirsty Ruffian."
From the above quoted expressions it would indeed be impossible to conclude otherwise than that the first gun on Fort Sumter was shot by Edmund Ruffin, and that such should be recorded as an his- torical fact. In fact, the above from S. D. Lee is the first intimation of a doubt on this subject that has ever been brought to the notice of any of the descendants of Edmund Ruffin. To all who knew Edmund Ruffin it would have been useless to say more than that throughout his manuscript he speaks of it as a fact. To those to whom he was a stranger I would say that many more comments of the press of that date establish the same fact; those of the South being loud in his praise, and those of the North being still more vindictive.
MUSTER ROLL OF THE HOLCOMBE GUARDS.
The following is furnished by Mr. W. A. Parrott, of McMullen, Greene county: The Holcombe Guards, afterwards Company I, Seventh Virginia Regiment (General Kemper's original regiment), Kemper's Brigade, Pickett's Division, Longstreet's Corps, Army of Northern Virginia, was organized May, 1861, at White Hall, Albe- marle county, Va., and mustered into service June 3, 1861, with the following officers and men :
J. J. Winn, Captain, dead; J. W. Rodes, first lieutenant, dead; B. G. Brown, second lieutenant, dead; W. B. Maupin, third lieu- tenant; T. J. Golding, orderly sergeant; J. E. Wyant, second ser- geant, dead; D. O. Etherton, third sergeant, dead; W. A. Brown, fourth sergeant, killed at Williamsburg; C. B. Brown, fifth sergeant;
