A General Rout

In the February/March, 1979, “Postscripts,” we questioned whether General Paul Sanguinetti actually had served at the battle of Gettysburg. Now we learn from reader Daniel T. McCaIl, Jr., of Mobile, Alabama, and Milo B. Howard, Jr., director of the Alabama Archives in Montgomery, that he did indeed. Sanguinetti, it seems, was a Corsican who came to this country in 1859, enlisted as a drummer boy in the 19th Virginia Infantry in 1862, became a private in 1863, charged with Pickett at Gettysburg, was taken prisoner by Union forces during the evacuation of Richmond, and was paroled at war’s end. He then served in the Alabama state militia for two decades, and in the last years of his life was the watchman at the State Capitol in Montgomery. He was even a general—of sorts—for that was his rank in the United Confederate Veterans, an unofficial gathering of former Rebel troops. We stand corrected—in fact, driven from the field.