achusetts,
that Order appears to stand sponsor for a "Narrative" which falsely
proclaimed to the world that the brave men of the Philadelphia Brigade
"ran like rabbits" from Pickett's Division at Gettysburg.

What more need be said to convince this Military Order of the Loyal Legion
that from the beginning to the end, the Philadelphia Brigade was just as
loyal, just as brave, just as heroic, as they, our comrades, and with this
statement of facts the Association of Survivors of the Philadelphia
Brigade calls upon the Military Order of the Loyal Legion, Commandery of
Massachusetts, and the History Commission of Wisconsin, to retract the
statement made in the volumes published by them during the year 1908, as
to cowardice.

In meeting and repulsing the charge of Pickett's Division at the Bloody
Angle of Gettysburg, the High Water Mark of the Civil War, the
Philadelphia Brigade gained imperishable fame that will live in history as
long as our country will exist as a nation, and that renown is so
irrevocably fixed in the annals of the War that it can never be impaired
while time itself shall last.

Since the foregoing reply was formulated, to the charge of cowardice made
under the auspices of the Loyal Legion of Massachusetts, the Philadelphia
Brigade Association has received a book of 185 pages, entitled "The Battle
of Gettysburg, by Frank Aretas Haskell, Wisconsin History Commission,
Reprint No. 1," an edition of 2,500 copies, printed under authority of the
State of Wisconsin. In printing this book these words appear in the
preface:

"The Wisconsin History Commission has, in accordance with its fixed
policy, reverted to the original edition, which is here presented
entire, exactly as first printed."

And this is what that "History Commission" records on pages 9 and 10
regarding the Eleventh Corps:

"Between three and four o'clock in the afternoon the enemy, now in
overwhelming force, resumed the battle with spirit. The portion of
the Eleventh Corps making but feeble opposition to the advancing
enemy, soon began to fall back. Back in disorganized masses they fled
into the town, hotly pursued, and in lanes, in barns, in yards and
cellars, throwing away their arms, they sought to hide like rabbits,
and were captured, unresisting, by hundreds."

The Loyal Legion of Massachusetts hadn't the courage to print that
paragraph in their book.

These regiments formed the Ele