General Lee has formally denied, in a despatch dated 21st
July, the statement contained in an official despatch from General Meade that the Federal army captured a brigade of infantry, two pieces of artillery, and some small arms, when the Southern army crossed the Potomac on the 13th and 14th July. The men captured, he says were all stragglers, not captured in fight, who had loitered says, excessive fatigue, and the guns were only left behind. On the contrary, the Federals re-assert that the brigade was regularly captured after a fight, in which a great many were killed and wounded ; and the general in command of the brigade, General Pettigrew, of .South Carolina, was killed and left on the field, and was in the hands of the Federals on the very day on which General Lee wrote his despatch. Probably General Lee was mis- informed of the event by his subordinates in the rear. A. general of brigade could not have been among the stragglers.
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