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The War in Their Words: A staff officer recalls the moment when friendly fire nearly killed one of the confederacy’s top generals. The following article about the wounding of Confederate Lt. Gen. James Longstreet at the Battle of the Wilderness on May 6, 1864, appeared in several Northern and Southern newspapers, including the Savannah Republican and then the New York Commercial Advertiser, in December 1865. The piece is unsigned, but the author was probably Francis Dawson, a captain and ordnance officer on Longstreet’s staff. Dawson’s Reminiscences of Confederate Service, published in 1883, has an account of Longstreet’s wounding that includes two quotes from the ill-fated General Micah Jenkins that are nearly identical to those in the December 1865 newspaper accounts.