Category Archives: Confederate Veteran Magazine

Colonel Solon Z. Ruff

SOLON Z. RUFF, colonel of the 18th Georgia which followed the Phillips Georgia Legion in the attack on Fort Sanders, was a graduate of the Georgia Military Institute and a professor there until the war began, according to the web … Continue reading

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The last Rebel unit to leave Richmond

There’s always been some dispute as to which Rebel unit was the last to depart Richmond during its evacuation on April 3-4, 1865. But for some there was never any doubt. One who had no doubt was Captain D.B. Sanford … Continue reading

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“…the only real night charge we ever made.”

Two of the Mississippi Brigade’s regiments, the 18th and the 21st, were charged with driving in the Union pickets the night before the dawn assault on Fort Sanders by the 17th and 13th regiments. After the war, 18th regiment Captain … Continue reading

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Reprise: The Official Records

When I first encountered the OR at the University of Texas undergraduate library, back in the early 1980s, I was amazed at how much shelf space it required. All one-hundred-twenty-eight volumes, including an index and an atlas. Sigh. Nowadays it’s … Continue reading

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Reprise: The post-war Union view

The Nov. 28, 1863, Rebel attack on the Union pickets in front of Fort Sanders’ northwest bastion was as clear a tip off as anything could be that a larger ground attack was imminent, according to these recollections in the … Continue reading

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Reprise: Why I believe Gen. Humphreys sat out the attack

If you only read the Official Records, you would have to assume that Gen. Benjamin Grubb Humphreys, who took over the Mississippi Brigade after Gen. William Barksdale’s death at Gettysburg, was in the vanguard of the brigade’s two regiments which … Continue reading

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The Boy Battery at Sharpsburg/Antietam

From an obituary of Confederate Gen. Stephen D. Lee, in the July, 1908 edition of Confederate Veteran Magazine: “He always said that it was his ‘gallant boys of the batteries that placed the wreath around his stars.’ At Sharpsburg he … Continue reading

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Col. Ruff’s burial place

Officially, history doesn’t know where Colonel Solon Z. Ruff of the Eighteenth Georgia is buried. The Eighteenth Mississippi’s Captain Gart Johnson told Confederate Veteran Magazine Ruff was shot down at the edge of the ditch along with Col. Kennon McElroy … Continue reading

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