A Company of Officers Commanded by a Cook

Abstract

A Company of Offi cers Commanded by a Cook Pope was sent to summon the commanders of the ten companies to the colonel of the 3rd South Carolina, James D. Nance. Th ese offi cers thought little of this, expecting orders regarding the upcoming march. Once they were in the presence of their commander, their previous ease quickly evaporated. Nance had a comRobert E. Lee’s General Order No. 73 was written June 27, 1863, governing the conduct expected of Confederate soldiers while in Maryland and Pennsylvania during what came to be known as the Gettysburg Campaign. Lee had seen war before and was mindful of the tendencies of armies when unleashed in the land of their enemy. General Order No. 73 was written to prevent such outrages. Aft er fi rst praising the overall conduct of his soldiers, Lee then acknowledged that there “have however been instances of forgetfulness on the part of some.” So he cautioned against “barbarous outrages” and “wanton destruction of private property that have marked the course of the enemy in our own country.”1 While it is generally acknowledged that Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia was indeed quite mindful of the rules of war during this campaign, naturally there were lapses. One of these resulted in the arrest of nine offi cers and created a spectacle enjoyed by much of the army. During the retreat from Pennsylvania, as the 3rd South Carolina Volunteer Infantry was camped at Chester Gap in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia just south of Winchester, the soldiers were sleeping out in the open. A light rain had begun, so some of the men decided to get rails from a “shambling, tumbledown rail fence” near camp to build crude shelters.2 Others decided to also build a fi re from some of the rails for cooking and to fi ght off the night’s chill. Th e next morning, as the regiment formed up for the day’s march, Adj. Young John