July 12, 1861 (Friday): "I Beseech You To Send Them..."

Colonel George T. Anderson, 11th Georgia

                                                                                    RICHMOND, July 12, 1861.

Governor Joseph E. Brown,

                        Atlanta, Ga.:

   The crisis of our fate may depend upon your action.  The two regiments you have organized are indispensable to success.  For the sake of our cause and the country I beseech you to send them, without standing upon the point of the brigade organization.  The President has no power to accept a brigade.  If you refuse you will regret it.  It is not necessary that I should say more.  Semmes’ regiment, about which the President wrote you some time since, I have been compelled to order here.  You can doubtless supply its place in a few days.

                                                                                    L. P. WALKER.

Official Records, Series I, Vol. 51, Part 2, Page 162

The crisis at hand is the impending clash at Manassas, which both sides can see clearly coming.  Secretary of War Walker implores the Governor of Georgia to send him two regiments which were being withheld because the Confederate government could not, by law, accept them as a single brigade.  Governor Brown wanted his troops paired together in brigades, as did most states.  The 11th Georgia, organized on July 2, 1861 was pushed forward but was delayed at Piedmont by a train collision and did not arrive in time for the battle of First Manassas.