Gen. Harris Took the Astounding Step of Personally Ordering Lee to go Back.

Brigadier-General Nathaniel Harrison Harris (1834-1900) was a senior officer of the Confederate States Army who commanded infantry in the Eastern theater of the American Civil War. Harris was paroled at Appomattox, Virginia on April 9, 1865, where he was in command of Mahone’s division and was pardoned on October 19, 1865. Typed Letter Signed “N.H. Harris” on his company letterhead, datelined San Francisco, July 19, 1895 written to General Marcus Wright (was serving as the agent collecting CSA records for the official records ), 1pp. In full, My dear General, If the volume containing reports of the operation around Richmond and Petersburg, 1864 & 5 is in print, I will be under great obligation if you can send me a copy, an unbound copy will serve my purpose.” Thrice-wounded, he was engaged in some of the hardest fighting of the war. His most memorable moment of the war came at the battle of Spotsylvania when Gen. Robert E. Lee attempted to lead a counterattack directly against the Union lines. Lee was fully prepared to put himself at the head of a charging brigade-and it was Harris’s brigade that he planned to use. Gen. Harris took the astounding step of personally ordering Lee to go back.