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Confederate Veteran

1894

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Confederate Veteran. January 1894

Published Monthly in the Interest of Confederate Veterans and Kindred Topics. PRICE, 10 CENTS. } Vol. II. NASHVILLE, TENN., JANUARY, 1894. No. 1.{S. A. CUNNINGHAM

Entered at the Postoffice, Nashville, Tenn.. as second class matter Advertisements: Two dollars per inch one time, or $20 a year, except last page. One page, one time, special, $40. Discount : Half year, one issue, one year, one issue. This is an increase on former rate.

Contributors will please be diligent to abbreviate. The space is too Important for any thing that has not special merit.

The date to subscriptions is always given to the month before it ends. For instance, If the VETERAN be ordered to begin with January, the date on mall list will be December, and the subscriber entitled to that number,

WITH this greeting to patrons of the VETERAN for the new year there must be explanation and apology for delay in issue. It was difficult to determine about certain changes to be made in the new volume, leasing all upon the price. When it was decided to increase the price it was determined to improve the quality of material and, if possible, the matter, for the new year. A sudden and unexpected illness intervened just as matters were under way for having the VETERAN completed by the 15th, which compelled some delay. The articles in this number will be found very good, yet greater disappointment than ever has been had in promised articles of much strength and historic benefit, which it was expected would begin the new year's volume. Some of these may be expected in February. Review of many books and matters of interest to comrades has been unavoidably delayed. However, with better facilities than ever, with restored health, and with the assured approval of all people who honor the name Confederate, it is believed that in future the VETERAN will be better than it has ever been.

The time of issuing the VETERAN has been from the 12th to the 18th of the month, although it has been designed to bring it to the first. It is considered best, however, to have publication day at about the middle of the month. Therefore patrons everywhere may not expect it before the 15th, close to which day it may be expected in the mail to every subscriber.

SINCE having in charge the highly responsible work of sending out the CONFEDERATE VETERAN to so many thousands who are its loyal and firm supporters, the grave responsibility weighs heavier and heavier. A sentiment has been growing for months, to which reference is now made, which is in behalf of Union soldiers who were fired by the kind of patriotism that inspired Andrew Jackson to say, "The Union! it must and shall be preserved," who fought its battles to a victorious ending, and who, with admiration for the courage of Confederates and highest personal esteem, felt the great injustice of depriving them of property by confiscation, and have all these decades continued in a political minority whereby they have been wholly cut off from public patronage. In behalf of such men I am impelled to commend the consideration of comrades. Ought we not take such action as opportunity offers that will bring about a co operative spirit with them and assure them in every possible way that they have not only our gratitude, but that we are determined to co operate at any time in such measures as will enable them to exercise such influence upon the administration of government as their patriotism and their steadfastness merit? There can be no spirit truer than that which inspires this sentiment. In their and our powerless condition three decades have elapsed, and we have never manifested to them the regret we feel and the high regard we entertain for them. So much as a suggestion. Let it be said that the VETERAN is for such patriots, and is for making known that Confederate veterans have a thoroughly fraternal regard for the men who fought us only to maintain the Union, and we would gladly co operate with them for the common good of our great country.

CONFEDERATE VETERAN SOUVENIR.

To meet a demand from every section of the South for issues of the VETERAN for 1893, which cannot be supplied, it has been determined to publish as a Souvenir all the best articles and the many splendid illustrations which appeared in that volume. The Souvenir will contain 100 pages, be printed in superb style and nicely bound. The price will be twenty five cents. It is furnished free to all subscribers who have remitted or may remit $1. It cannot be supplied to those who have renewed at fifty cents, but they can have it by remitting twenty five cents. It is expected to have the Souvenir ready for distribution at the Birmingham reunion, April 25th, about which time it will be delivered through the mails. Advertisements will be taken for this Souvenir edition at liberal rates. This will be an excellent opportunity for first class advertisers, as the Souvenir will be one of the most popular productions ever issued in the South. The forms will be stereotyped, and it is believed that several editions will be demanded.

So unsettled was the question of price of the VETERAN for so long that it has been decided to accept remittances that have been made at fifty cents to date and through this month. Such subscribers, however, will not be entitled to the Souvenir. All subscriptions received during December at one dollar, which came through the liberality of friends, were entered at the reduced rate, therefore making the time two years for one dollar, this even against their protest. Since January remittances at one dollar have been entered for the year with the Souvenir, and remittances at fifty cents have been entered for the year without the Souvenir, and to show the most liberal spirit possible this condition will continue until the end of this month, after which no subscriptions will be entered for less than one dollar, except renewals without the Souvenir, which will be accepted at seventy five cents. All dollar subscriptions will include the Souvenir. It is believed, with this statement and the editorial on this subject, page 16, that patrons will be universally satisfied with the change.

FRAMED COPIES OF CONFEDERATE FLAGS.

A misleading proposition was published in the December VETERAN. It was that " Flags of a nation that fell," and pictures of Gen. Lee and of Mr. Davis would be furnished framed for thirty cents. It was not intended to offer but one frame and glass for the thirty cents. The design was to give the preference to friends as between either of these eminent men or the flags. A contract was made with factory agents to supply cherry frames with glass, to be supplied by the VETERAN, at thirty cents, just as the factory shut down, and there has been annoying delay in getting the frames made at the very low price named. It is understood now that during the next week they will be sent in by the hundred, so all the orders received can be filled without any further delay. Remember, that all who wish the four flags framed nicely under glass can be supplied by remitting the thirty cents.

The offer to supply the Davis and Lee pictures in these frames is recalled. These plates cannot be "made ready" and printed at the small cost in orders of less than one hundred copies.

IT was designed to review somewhat fully in this VETERAN Gen. Gordon's great lecture, "The Last Days of the Confederacy," by referring to and quoting from it in such way as would not detract from the interest of audiences to whom he may yet deliver it. The review has been deferred, however, as have many others on account of sickness. In introducing Gen. Gordon Gen, W. H. Jackson, the Major General commanding Tennessee Division U. C. V., paid fine tribute to the lecturer. He asked, Who could so well portray the closing incidents as the hero of the closing scenes, who was one of the leaders of the "forlorn hope" at Appomattox, leading that last charge, which is unsurpassed in history, who was the trusted Lieutenant of the peerless and spotless Robert E. Lee, and who was the typical soldier, promoted from Captain to Lieutenant General by merit alone? He mentioned the loyal devotion of the speaker to his chief, and recited the incident of his taking Lee's bridle reins in the battle of Sharpsburg. When Lee said to Gordon, who was commanding the center of the line, "I have no support for you," Gordon stood there like a stone wall, with a ball in his right leg and another in his left arm, completely shattering it, yet he still refused to leave the field. Finally, when shot by a minnie ball in his left shoulder, and terribly shot in the face, he was carried from the field unconscious. The speaker has been Governor of the empire State of the South, and twice elected to the United States Senate. He is Senator now, and is Commander of the United Confederate Veterans.

THE CONFEDERATE SOLDIER IN THE CIVIL WAR

needs attention, A clever Republican, who has changed his residence from the North to the blue grass region of Kentucky, has inaugurated another great scheme for getting the Confederate soldier's money. He has sent out an elaborate circular, not to the VETERAN, and has gotten it up so ingeniusly that the authorship appears as Hon. Jefferson Davis, associated by Hon. A. H. Stephens and other Confederates. Then Gens. R. E. Lee, Albert Sidney Johnston and others "describe" the battles. Admiral Franklin Buchanan describes the naval battles.

Oh the engravings. They are to exceed one thousand in number. The "partial table of contents" is a stunner. It is represented under twenty two different heads. The author's patriotism (? ) has stirred him to the depths. "The publications of 'The Soldiers in our Civil War,' 'Harper's Pictorial History,' and 'The Pictorial Battles of the Civil War' 'the three greatest and most stupendous pictorial histories ever published in this or any other country renders necessary a companion volume giving the Confederate side,'" etc. The author advertises himself as "more the master of the subject than any man living." He is a daisy. Don't forget that he will not let you veterans nor other people have this great book except by subscription, and at $8 or $12. The pictures are old in the main, but they were made North and will be reprinted there. I did not intend to notice further your enterprises for enlightening the Confederate elements, not even to protest against the Washington Post's indirect charge that the VETERAN, by its " sensational war stories," is "inferior" but you are amusing. If you will be candid and tell how your marvelous book will be published, the VETERAN, which will not be put under a bushel, will print it gratis cordially.

Do be manly and see how much better you will feel. If you will send your politics to Kansas, and demonstrate that you can turn the vilest of partisan pictures to good account, making them serve exactly the opposite purpose for which they were designed and made, you will have the fraternal regard of heroes.


Capt. B. H. Teague, Aiken, S. C.: Inclosed find postal note. This has been handed me by a worthy veteran who lost his arm while wearing the blue at Jackson, Miss. I lent him my CONFEDERATE VETERAN and he was so well pleased that he desires me to ask you to send it for the ensuing year.

Col. D. H. Reynolds, of Lake Village, Ark., writing of Gen. O. F. Strahl, killed at Franklin, says: He and I first met as students at the Ohio Wesleyan University in 1851 or 1852, and we left there at the close of the college year in June, 1854, From that time until his death we were more or less intimately acquainted. We read law in the office of Judge John W. Harris in Somerville, Tenn., and were admitted to the bar there in 1858. Shortly after I went to Arkansas and he went to Dyersburg, Tenn., where he engaged in the practice of law until he entered the army in 1861. Gen. Strahl was one of the best men I ever knew. He was intelligent, true and brave. He was generous. As such men always are, he was patriotic, and a true friend to his fellow man. (Both of these loyal Southern men were born in Ohio in 1832.)

Master Jefferson Hayes Davis, whose name was fittingly changed by legislative enactment, is a bright healthy lad and proud of his ancestry. The father paid tribute for which the South should be mindful in surrendering his own name in the change.

MAGGIE DAVIS HAYES AND WINNIE DAVIS.

These are the two surviving children of Jefferson Davis. The elder, Mrs. Hayes, was born at the National Capital, while her father was Secretary of War. She is the wife of Joel Addison Hayes, who is a native of Mississippi, but whose ancestors were of the oldest families of Nashville, which is now the home of his mother and sisters. Mr. and Mrs. Hayes reside in Colorado Springs, Col. They have four children living, two each, daughters and sons.

Miss Winnie Davis, born near the close of the war, is everywhere known as "The Daughter of the Confederacy." Both daughters honor their distinguished parentage.

TO A YANKEE CAPTOR.

You ask for a line about Blue and Gray

Your rebel

has this to say,

He has fought hard in many a fray,

And saw the lives of many pass away Blue and Gray.

But with the lights of the present day

He wonders why the mighty array

Was permitted for one's victory, the other's dismay,

Why did we not the golden rule obey ?

Blue and Gray.

Write and suggest names of per sons who would like the VETERAN.

HOOD'S CAMPAIGN IN TENNESSEE.

Every subscriber to the VETERAN, and every friend to the cause espoused, who realizes the importance of true history, will be gratified by the great kindness of Mrs. W. D. Gale, daughter of General and Bishop Leonidas Polk, for the contribution of personal letters by her husband in connection with the eventful times in Tennessee during Hood's campaign. Mrs. Gale is doing just as every patriot should do in giving to the public, through this important channel, the facts as brought out by witnesses at the time. Col. Gale was Adjutant General of Stewart's Corps.

The entire letter is given, the references to family in which bare footed children are mentioned being given as illustrating vividly the situation at the time, as there was not a family in the State whose condition had been better to feed and clothe the household than had been this.

HEADQUARTERS STEWART'S CORPS, NEAR TUPELO, January 14., 1865. My Darling Kate: Your dear letter of December 20th received and read with what avidity you can well imagine when you learn that the last I had received was of November 6th. I am glad to find you in such good spirits, and hope you may bear up and keep well. I feel indignant when I hear that Fanny and Dudley have not had their shoes. How the little darlings must suffer from the biting cold! Now that we are to go into winter quarters I hope to be able to attend somewhat to your comforts, and will try and have some made them, but it will be some time yet before you will get them.

I wrote you a short account of our battles in Middle Tennessee and our flight from the State. I now give you some of the particulars in detail. After three weeks' preparation at Florence we finally crossed the Tennessee on the 20th of November and moved forward toward Mt. Pleasant. Gen. Thomas at that time had his army at Pulaski. When we got to Mt. Pleasant he had fallen back to Columbia. We got to Columbia on the 26th and invested it. On the night of the 27th it was evacuated. On the 28th this and Cheatham's Corps began one of the finest moves of the war in conception worthy of Stonewall Jackson, and in execution feeble and disgraceful to cross Duck River above Columbia, and by a forced march over bad roads and through the woods and fields to strike the pike at Spring Hill, and cut Schofield off from Nashville or strike him in the flank. The move was made and all was a success up to the time of striking the enemy. We struck the pike at Spring Hill just as the retreating enemy were moving by, completely surprising him. But strange to say, we remained all night in sound of the voices of the men as they retreated in the greatest haste, and not a blow was struck, though orders were sent by Gen. Hood several times to attack at once. One time Gov. Harris himself carried the order to Gen. . Gen. Lee was left in Columbia to cross and attack in the rear. He failed to come up also, and thus Tennessee was lost. Gen. Stewart was ready and anxious to lead his corps to the attack, but was not ordered, as the other was in front. The next morning we pushed forward in pursuit of the flying column, the road strewn everywhere with the wreck of a flying army.
Wagons, just set on fire and abandoned, were saved from destruction. When we got near Franklin we found the enemy in line across the road two miles from town. Preparations were made to turn the position by a flank movement, when the force fell back to their entrenchments near the town. Preparations were made at once to assault the town. Franklin is in a bend of the Harpeth, and the enemy's line was a circle, each wing resting upon the river. * * * * It was one of the strongest places in the world to defend. Our men went boldly up in the face of 20,000 muskets and at least 70 pieces of artillery, many of the bands playing our favorite pieces. The enemy was easily driven from the front line and sought safety behind the inner line, where his artillery was. Our line moved forward and closed around the enemy Loring on the right, French next, then Walthall, then Cleburne, then Brown, then Bate. Johnston's Division the only one of Lee's corps that was up was held in reserve, and afterward was put in where Bate and Brown were. The fight was furious, and the carnage awful beyond anything I ever saw. Our men were mowed down by what is called an enfilade and reverse fire, I. e., in the side and rear, in addition to that in front. The enemy fought with great desperation. Our men were flushed with hope, pride, and ambition as they fought for Tennessee. They felt that the eyes of the men and women all over our country, as well as Tennessee, were upon them, and the Yankee Army which they had followed so long was before them.

Wave. Munich ! all thy banners wave,
And charge with all thy chivalry

The chivalry of the South did charge, as bravely as they charged Agincourt or Cressy, and Marathon and Thermopylea were not more grandly fought than Franklin. Charge after charge was made. As fast as one division was shattered and recoiled, another bravely went forward into the very jaws of death, and came back broken and bloody, again rallying quickly with their heroic officers, and again went forward to do what seemed impossible or die. Such men as Loring, Walthall, Adams, Cockrill, Gates, Featherston, Shelby, Reynolds, Cleburne, Strahl, Gist, and others, should live in prose and poetry as long as the story of the war is written or read. No pen can do justice to the gallantry of these men, Walthall had two horses shot dead under him. The field was covered with the wounded and the dead. The enemy's line had been crossed in one or two places, but no man who went over was ever known to return. Many hundreds lay all night in the ditch separated from the enemy by the thickness of the embankment. * * * While the officers were collecting the scattered and broken ranks I went with Gen. Stewart to Gen. Hood's headquarters. He had determined to renew the attack in the morning. The plan was that all our artillery100 pieces which had been brought up, was to open on them at daylight, and at 9 the whole army was to assault the works. You may well think it was a bitter prospect for our poor fellows. We rode up to a part of the enemy's line, which we still held, to place Strahl's brigade in position, when I was struck by the stillness in the enemy's works, and asked the officer nearest me if the enemy had not gone. He said that they had, as some of his men had been down and found no one there. Further examination convinced me of the fact, and I rode back to our camp fire, and just as day was dawning I dismounted, wet, weary,

hungry, and disheartened, telling Gen. Stewart that Schofield was gone. A half hour's rest, not sleep, on the wet ground and I got up, drank a cup of coffee and went to my daily work. I rode over the field early in the day, before the details which I had ordered had begun to bury the dead. It was awful! The ditch at the enemy's line on the right and left of the pike was literally filled with dead bodies, lying across each other, in all unseemly deformity of violent death. Gen. Adams rode his horse upon the breast works and both horse and rider fell there. Cleburne was thirty yards in front of his division when he fell, shot through the heart. But I am tired of the sickening details, and you all must be, too. You can see our dreadful loss from published accounts.

I have now one more scene to paint, one more story to tell you, and I am done. I wish I had a pen to do justice to the subject, for in all the annals of this war, filled as it is with the great and noble deeds of great and noble men and women, none exceed and few equal in true merit the noble sympathy of Mrs. John McGavock (Miss Winder). When day dawned we found ourselves near her house in her lawn which was in the rear of our line. The house is one of the large old fashioned country houses of the better class in Tennessee, two stories high, with many rooms and every arrangement for comfort. This was taken as a hospital, and the wounded in hundreds were brought to it during the battle, and all the night after. Every room was filled, every bed had two poor bleeding fellows, every spare space, niche and corner, under the stairs, in the hall, everywhere but one room for her and family. And when the noble old house could hold no more, the yard was appropriated until the wounded and dead filled that, and all were not yet provided for. Our doctors were deficient in bandages, and she began by giving her old linen, then her towels and napkins, then her sheets and table cloths, and then her husband's shirts and her own under garments. During all this time the surgeons plied their dreadful work amid the sighs and moans and death rattle. Yet, amid it all, this noble woman, the very impersonation of Divine sympathy and tender pity, was active and constantly at work. During all the night neither she nor any one of her household slept, but dispensed tea and coffee and such stimulants as she had, and that, too, with her own hands, un affrighted by the sight of blood, unawed by horrid wounds, unblanched by ghastly death, she walked from room to room, from man to man, her very skirts stained in blood, the incarnation of pity and mercy. Is it strange that all who were there praise her and call her blessed? About nine in the morning she sent for us General and staff and gave us a nice, warm breakfast, and a warmer welcome. The brother of one of my clerks (McReady) was very badly wounded, and then in her house. I bespoke her kind attention, which she gave till he died.
Many years ago I was in the same house, and in the game room, on a visit. On one side of the fire sat the father of Mrs. McGavock, then an old man. He seemed particularly glad to see me, and told me that he was a soldier in the war of 1812, and was at the battle of New Orleans. When on his way back the troops marched by the plantation of my grandfather Green, below Natchez, and his regiment was entertained by him and furnished with milk in great quantities. He spoke of the gratitude of the men.

There were beeves killed also, and a great treat given them. Is it not strange that after fifty years a descendant of that generous man should receive hospitality on a bloody field of battle from a descendant of the tired and hungry soldier?

I will leave the balance of the campaign for future letters. Not a drum was heard, nor a funeral note,

As his corpse to the ramparts we hurried,

Not a soldier fired a farewell shot
O'er the graves of the heroes we buried.

The Generals were buried at Ashwood Cemetery.

THE CARPET BAG REIGN OF TERROR IN ARKANSAS.

During the dark days in the last year of the great war for Southern Independence, the distress and suffering throughout the South finds, perhaps, no parallel in history. With its close came conciliatory messages from the general Government, and our afflicted people turned to their work with sorrowful but determined hearts, feeling confident that the paroles of the brave men who had fought so long and so well would be fully respected. But the carpet bag thieves who infested the entire South had no respect for paroles, none for the lives of the citizens, nor even for the honor and virtue of the women! Few States were doomed at this period to such painful experiences as fell to the fate of Arkansas.

In a most valuable and entertaining book entitled, "The Brooks and Baxter War: a History of the Reconstruction Period in Arkansas," the long, black and murderous record of the carpet baggers in that State is for the first time put in lasting shape and placed before the people. The author of this book is Gen. John M. Harrell, of Hot Springs, at present Brigadier General commanding the United Confederate Veterans for the Southern District of Arkansas. Gen. Harrell was a gallant Confederate officer. Participating in person, and passing through the dark scenes that paralyzed the energies of the State and drenched it with the blood of its people, it is peculiarly fortunate for Arkansas that Gen. Harrell has rescued from oblivion these important records which shortly must have passed from sight for want of proper attention. His work was undertaken "at intervals during a laborious life, and so written ' because it had to be,' and no one else would undertake it." It should be in the hands of every patriotic citizen of Arkansas, and the general student of history will want it. The book is gracefully and forcibly written.
In the light of the facts as therein presented, a more unprincipled villain never cursed Arkansas with his citizenship than Powell Clayton, the prince of carpetbaggers. Before the war he was a pro slavery Democrat, but became a Federal officer during the war, and afterward the ''black Republican" Governor of Arkansas, self installed by means of the most outrageous measures of undisguised fraud and force. He was a native of Pennsylvania (born in 1833), and afterward lived in Delaware. In 1855 he emigrated to Kansas, and in 1862 he turned up in Helena. Ark., at the head of a regiment of Federal cavalry. He went into that State with ''a sword in one hand and a torch in the other." After securing the office of Governor, with a gang of thieves, backed up by their negro soldiers, he proceeded to rob the people and State by every means

which he could devise and execute. His spacious home, at that time on a ridge overlooking the Arkansas River, was known as the "Robber's Roost."

In January, 1869. the Louisville Courier Journal published a letter over the nom de plume of "A Fair minded Carpet bagger," which contained these statements: "I served with Gov. Clayton during the war. I was born in Massachusetts, was educated at Harvard, and have always been a Republican. I voted for Fremont, twice for Mr. Lincoln, and recently for Gen. Grant, for President. My purpose is to give a fair notion of the condition of affairs in Arkansas. That condition is terrible. Nothing like it exists this side of the Cretan Islands. Common every day events remind me of the reign of Warren Hastings, in India, or of Mustapha Asaph, in Greece."

His acts of oppression and cruelty have made his name a stench in the nostrils of all Arkansians, and it will remain odious for all time to come. Among the many bloody murders committed by his hirelings and supporters was that of an old man by the name of Hooper, who was tied to his horse and shot dead at Plummersville. Strange to say that at this same place, where old man Hooper was so foully murdered, Clayton's brother, John M, Clayton, was himself murdered only a few years ago. In order to carry out his schemes he divided the State into three military districts, and placed them under martial law. Then followed scenes of bloodshed and murderous executions in all parts of the State. The most respected citizens were dragged from their families and openly murdered, and that without cause or form of trial. His negro militia ran riot, and women were outraged in the very presence of their helpless husbands! Relief only came to the suffering people when Clayton was elected to the United States Senate, many good Democrats voting for him as Senator in order to rid the State of his presence as Governor, knowing that as Senator he would at once sink into utter insignificance.

Gov. Elisha Baxter succeeded Clayton, and he had hardly taken his seat before one Joseph Brooks, a reverend hypocrite and scoundrel, who lived in Helena, and who had opposed Baxter for Governor, declared himself elected and forcibly took possession of the State House. In this contest " the Brooks and Baxter war" was brought on, and the State was still further disgraced. Knowing that Baxter had been made Governor by Clayton, many good citizens supported Brooks in this infamous contest, believing in his protestations of reform, and knowing his then bitter hatred of Clayton. Fortunately for the State, Brooks was finally overthrown and Baxter, the rightful Governor, took his seat. Brooks would have been as unscrupulous as Clayton, and would have taken up reconstruction where the latter left off. W. L. Stephenson, of Helena, figured as one of the judges during Clayton's rule. Baxter was undoubtedly the best man for the people that the Republicans could have furnished. His final opposition to the monstrous bond scheme, by which the State was plunged into debt, lost for him the support of Clayton and his gang.

The days of carpet bag rule in Arkansas will always recall painful recollections in the hearts of our people who passed through that fearful time. Gen. Harrell has performed an inestimable service to the people and State by his faithful record of that black period in the history of the State.

MIKE KELLY.

BY CAPT. BEN. M'CULLOCH HORD, NASHVILLE, TENN.

He was an Irishman by birth and a blacksmith by trade, but gave up his bellows and tongs to follow his gallant countryman, Gen. Pat Cleburne, into the Confederate Army, and become a gunner in a battery that was organized (?) by that peerless soldier. In many of his characteristics Mike was strikingly like his great Captain. Though possessed of a rich vein of Irish wit and humor, he did not have that volatile, bubbling overflow of spirit so natural to his people, on the contrary he was quiet, and rather retiring in his disposition, even to apparent timidity. His only form of dissipation was tobacco. I well remember his dirty little cob pipe, black with age and tobacco, with a stem of the same color and from the same causes, not three inches long. Every old soldier who saw much active service in the field, in thinking of the close places he has passed through, will recall vividly the sun burnt face and form of some comrade, friend or acquintance conspicuous for his courage, brave where all were braves, but he the bravest of them all. In this light dear old lion hearted Mike Kelly always appears to me. With the courage of a game cock, the modesty of a woman, and a sunny temperament, he was a lovable companion, and when by your side in action made you feel as if you had two right arms and a double pair of eyes. It is not, however, to speak of his courage, but some ludicrous incidents that happened to him after he "jined the cavalry," that I write.

Mike was torn nearly in two by a canister shot at Shiloh, and as soon as he was able to stand the journey his surgeon sent him home to Helena, Ark., to die, which Mike, with an Irishman's perversity, refused to do, but which he explained to me afterward in a half apologetic tone for not doing, that the shot didn't damage his " in'ards." It, however, incapacitated him for service in the infantry, and as the yankees by that time had the river as far down as Vicksburg, he could not well get back to his old command, so he reluctantly joined the cavalry. I say reluctantly because while he knew every bone and nerve in a horse's foot, and was perfectly at home when he had that article between his knees tacking on a shoe, put him on a horse's back and he was as helpless as a new born babe. I doubt if he was ever on a horse a half dozen times in his life before he joined Capt. Ruf. Anderson's company of scouts, of Col. Dobbins' Regiment and Walker's Brigade of Arkansas Cavalry, of which I was at that time a member. Seeing him one day shortly after he had joined hesitate on the bank of a little stream as if debating with himself which would be wiser, to ride across or to get down and wade and lead his horse, I called out to him, ''Grip him with your knees, Mike, and your back will keep dry." "Grip him with me knase, is it," he replied, "thin b' jimminy I'll wade, for I'm as bowlegged as a barrel hoop, its me grub and not me back I want to kape dry."

Capt. Andersen was a superb horseman, having spent many years of his life on the frontier of Texas. He could perform all the tricks in the saddle that are common to the cowboys of the present day, such as " scooping down " and picking from the ground his hat, six shooter, glove or handkerchief, with his horse at full speed. The frequent encounters his company had with the cavalry of the enemy made him pretty well known and much sought after by them, and through the citizens they had obtained not only a good description of him, but also knowledge of his dexterity as a rider. On one occasion our scouts reported that a foraging train was coming out from Helena, escorted by only a squadron of cavalry. Wetherly, our First Lieutenant, was in command of our troop that day, Anderson being absent, and as "the old man" never lost an opportunity to pick a fuss or make a fight, in or out of the army, we were soon in the saddle and on our way to strike the escort of the foragers. We were considerably outnumbered, but Wetherly thought that if he would dismount part of his men, place them in ambush, and when they opened fire on the blue coats charge with his mounted men on their rear, the advantage of the surprise would about even the thing up. So part of us were dismounted, Mike and I of the number, and were placed in a dense thicket not more than twenty paces from the road. The Federal column soon rode in, and at the word, "Fire!" the thicket blazed, and at the same time Wetherly charged, as he thought, on their rear with his mounted men. A number of horses and men went down from our fire, and the head of the Federal column was thrown into confusion, but only for a moment, for we had struck the Fifth Kansas, commanded by Maj. Sam Walker, as good body of cavalry and as brave an officer as there was in the Federal Army. At command they wheeled and formed, fronting the thicket, and charged in the face of our second volley. At the same time a yell distinctively yankee and a heavy discharge of carbines farther down the road to our right told us as plain as if we had seen it that Wetherly had wedged himself between the advance guard and main column of the enemy. At this unexpected turn in affairs, with nothing but our six shooters to hold back such odds we did not have time to reload our guns it did not take long to determine what to do. "Fall back to your horses,"was the order, and we fell. Mike and I were together. Partly on account of his old wound, but mostly, I think, on account of his contentious disposition under such circumstances, he was the poorest runner I ever saw, and when we reached our horse holder he was mounted, the others gone, and, throwing the reins to us, he followed in hot haste. I was in my saddle instantly. Mike was not so fortunate. His horse, a long, lank old bay, as thin as a rail, excited by the shouting, shooting and running, was plunging viciously around in the brush, draging Mike, who was pawing the air with first one foot and then the other in fruitless efforts to catch the stirrup, at the same time keeping up a continuous string of comments upon the situation generally, interspersed with bits of advice to me and curses at his horse, such as "Give'm a taste of your shooting, boy, whoa. you d n old Look at the blue devils how they swarm. What a d n fool old Wetherly was struck 'em in the middle. Divil take the cavalry service. Woah! " In the meantime the yankees, finding nothing in front of them, were coming on as fast as the nature of the ground would admit, firing at random, for the bushes were so thick they could not see ten feet in front. Although expecting to show a clean pair of heels to the enemy, I had instinctively drawn a fresh pistol from my holster when I mounted, and, according to Mike's advice, was using it to the best advantage I could, at the same time watching his circus performance and inwardly praying that it would come to a speedy close, or both of us would be either killed or captured in a half minute more. I couldn't leave him, for he had more than once stood between me and "the other shore," and to leave him now would show rank ingratitude and cowardice." " Turn him loose, Mike, and jump up behind me, it's our last chance," I yelled, and at that instant the front line of yankees burst through the thicket into the open woods within thirty steps of us. "Bang, bang, bang! halt! halt! surrender! surrender!" they called out. I turned, to pick up Mike if possible, and take my chance running, just in time to see his horse lunge forward, and he lying like a sack of meal crosswise in the saddle, with one hand clutched in the mane about midway the neck. My first impression was that he had been shot, and I was relieved to see him wiggle his leg over his blanket, which was strapped to his saddle, and straighten up. Our horses were going at racing speed, and Mike was doing some wonderful riding. Neither foot was in a stirrup, and he showed no partiality for any particular place to sit. Every time his old horse made a jump Mike would come down on him in a different place behind the cantle, in the saddle, over the pummel on his neck, then back again, up one side and down the other. He literally rode the old bay from his ears to his tail. A fallen tree was in front of us, both horses took the leap at the same time, and Mike disappeared on the far side of his horse. Gone this time sure, I thought, but the next instant, bare headed, he bounced back on top. Our pursuers, not liking to follow us too far in the woods, fired a  parting volley of lead and curses at us, pulled up, and a hundred yards or so further we run into our own scattered squad that had halted and reformed. An hour later Wetherly, having gotten the company together, we were pegging away at the rear of the Federal column as they leisurely fell back into Helena, having sent their well loaded wagons on in front. I stopped a moment to get a drink of water at a farm house the Federals had just left. The old man had a son in our company, and was very anxious to hear the news of the skirmish. "I tell you they came mighty near getting Capt. Anderson," he said, after learning that his boy was all right. "How's that," I asked, "Anderson wasn't in the skirmish at all." "O yes he was, that yankee Captain that just left here said he rode right on Anderson, knew it was him from his riding, never saw such develish fine riding in his life just played along in front of him cutting up all kinds of antics on his horse, and if he hadn't been afraid that he was doing it just to decoy him into another ambush he could have caught him." I knew at once that Mike's remarkable performances had been taken for Anderson's skill. The story was too good to keep, and no one enjoyed it more than Capt. Anderson. When the boys run it on Mike, however, he replied: " It's all right, me lads, but there's no danger of any of you blackguards ever being mistook for your betters."

Mike did not have to wait long, however, before he had his "inings" on our friends in blue, though he did not come out as scarless as in the Scrape just mentioned. Our pickets reported a body of Federal cavalry advancing toward LaGrange from Helena, on the St. Francis road. The regiment was badly scattered, having to picket some twelve or fifteen miles of country, but at the sound of " boots and saddle" a hundred and ten or fifteen men "fell in," and, with the Colonel at our head, we went trotting through LaGrange to meet the enemy. Some two or three miles below the little village the road runs through one of those large plantations common in that section, with a high, stiff rail fence on either side. In the woods just at the end of this lane there was a heavy growth of young pawpaws, Dismounting Wetherly, who had meanwhile been promoted to a captaincy, with thirty five or forty of his men, had them placed along the road with instructions to open on the enemy as soon as they came up. The Colonel took the rest of the command, skirted the plantation, and came to the lane a half mile lower down. We had scarcely reached this position and formed before Wetherly's guns opened. We swung by fours out in the lane, and with a yell went at them under full speed, Col, Dobbins and Capt. Anderson, the latter's company being in front, leading the charge on the right and left of the column. The road was as open and level as a billiard table, and every man was driving the steel into his horse. The rear companies of the Federal squadron promptly wheeled to meet us, and poured a steady fire from their carbines on us as we came up. I happened to be one of the first fours, and was within a few feet of the Colonel when I saw him glance over his shoulder, slacken his speed somewhat, throw up his hand and call to Capt. Anderson, "Let the column close up!" At the rate we had been coming we were necessarily badly strung out, and the Federals were standing solid across the entire road not seventy five yards from us. I had half turned my head to look back when, like a red streak, a trooper dashed by me. There was no mistaking the rider. The reins were flying loose, the old horse's blood was up, and so was Mike's. He couldn't have stopped him if he would, and he wouldn't if he could, for "charge" to Mike meant "go in," whether there was one man or one thousand at his back. He was drawing his gun as he passed, a double barrel shot gun loaded with buckshot and ball, and by the way, the best gun that cavalry can have for close quarters, (Cavalry are of no service in action unless they do come to close quarters.) I had only time to see him, when the Colonel again gave the order to charge. The delay was only a fractional part of a second, but Mike was then flying fifty yards in front of us. I saw two puffs of smoke fly over his head, and he disappeared in the cloud. The next instant we were "mixing with 'm," as Gen. Forrest would have said. The action was sharp and fierce, the Federals using the sabre and we six shooters. It was too hot to last long. Their rear gave way, we went through, joined Wetherly, and never gave them time to reform until they had been driven inside of their lines. I was hurrying back to the place where I had last seen Mike, when I came upon our surgeon gouging into a poor fellow after a ball, and inquired if he had found Mike's body. "Yes." "Dead?" "No, but wounded, and he's in the ambulance on ahead." I didn't have an opportunity to see Mike until some time after midnight. I found him, with others, stretched on some straw in a barn that had been converted into a hospital. His head was swathed in bandages, and looked as big as a half bushel. His face was so swollen he could not see, and the poor fellow was delirious.

From the surgeon I learned that Mike had marched a couple of prisoners up to him, saying, " Take charge of 'm, Doc," when he keeled over at his feet with an empty sixshooter in his hand. An examination showed that his head had been terribly beaten, the cuts were to the skull in five different places. I afterward learned from Mike, as soon as he was able to see and suck his cob pipe, that after emptying his gun he did not have time to draw his pistol before he was wedged in the Federal column, and clubbing his gun he was "knocking the spalpeens" right and left, when some "dirty blackguard" struck him over the head, knocking him from his horse. In falling he was caught between the horses of a couple of Federals, his arms pinned to his sides as the horses were crowded together, and the last he remembered their riders were beating a tattoo on his head. When he recovered consciousness he was lying in the timber, and two Federal soldiers standing close by undecided whether to try to escape or surrender. Mike decided the matter for them. Struggling to his feet and taking a pistol from the ground, having lost his own, doubtless, in his tumble, he promptly ordered them to throw up their hands, which they did, and were marched back as above stated. Neither Mike nor his prisoners knew at the time that the pistol he pointed at them was empty.

Mike was a favorite with the Colonel, who, like the rest of us, would occasionally joke him about his riding. Shortly after these incidents, when Mike was able to crawl out and sun himself, the Colonel passed by and began to rig him about letting his horse run away in the charge and carry him into the yankee lines.

Run away, is it,

said Mike. "Och, Colonel, its yourself that's fond of a joke. Now when we swung into the lane and you ordered us to charge, if ye had just tipped me a wink and said, 'Mike, I don't mean it, I'm only joking,' my head would be as sound as yours this minute." The laugh was on the Colonel, and he joined in it heartily.

The story of Mike Kelly is longer than was intended. yet this is hardly a beginning of the many stories that seem fitting while writing of him. He actually made a cannon by a process of rings, and welding them successively, and with it he fired on a government transport containing the pay for Banks' army.

Lakeland, Fla., Oct. 16, 1893. My last messmate fell in the battle of Franklin. When we buried him we placed at the head of his grave a plain wooden slab, with this inscription, "W, J. Edgar, Co. H., 5th Tenn. Reg." In a printed list of Confederate dead interred in McGavock Cemetery, I see his name is W. J. Egar, the "d" being omitted. Will some kind friend make the correction on the stone?

J. M. Fraser, Morgan City, La.: I was one of the youngest soldiers in the Confederate Army, being only thirteen years old when I started as bugler in a company of independent rangers in Texas. I like the VETERAN because it speaks the truth, and I shall have all of the copies bound, so that my children can read them. I belong to the Berwick Camp. I have spoken to the editor of the Independent Democrat to mention the VETERAN in his paper, and he will do so.

Billy Slatter, Winchester, Tenn.:. Now you know I am an old and practical printer, and I am persuaded that you will have to increase the price or lose money. Slatter will not take advantage of your offer to accept fifty cents for a renewal, but will send you one dollar, and I want all the rest to do likewise.

THE CONFEDERATE CAUSE IN MARYLAND.

A history of the Maryland Line Confederate Home is now in press at Baltimore. The VETERAN has advance proof sheets, and makes liberal extracts. The "old United States Arsenal," of which there is a brief account, covers an area about equal to two squares in a city, and, furnished as it is, entitles it to consideration as "the best soldiers' home in the United States:"

That there was a division of sentiment in Maryland upon the causes which led to the war between the States no one will deny, yet the large preponderance of public opinion was heartily in favor of the cause of the South. Maryland, by reason of her geographical location, close commercial interests with the tobacco and cotton raising States, similarity of institutions and intimate social and natural relations with the people south of the Potomac, was emphatically a Southern State, notwithstanding it had come to be classed with that division of the country lying north of the Potomac and south of New England called the Middle States. Of the same ancestry, prevailing customs and habits, and closely welded by intermarriage, together with the memories of the past struggle of the colonies in the French and Indian wars, and of the free and independent States which determined to throw off allegiance to Great Britain and King George with the same views of the character of the Federal Union, and the rights and privileges which were reserved to the States under the Constitution of 1789, it would have been unnatural to have found her people engaging in a fratricidal war of desolation and invasion of those communities, to which she was so bound by historic and sympathetic ties.

The conservatism of her people misled some to indulge the hope that what was popularly called the "love of the Union" would overcome the considerations of honor and the associations of years of common struggle and danger, but such conceptions were as unfounded as they were insulting to the manhood and integrity of her people. The right of self government had, on this continent, no firmer supporters and defenders than in Maryland,

Allusion is only made to these circumstances to explain why it is that we have here in Maryland a State that was not " out of the Union " a home for Confederate soldiers. Her sons were in the Confederacy, the hearts of her women were there, and the great body of her people were in sympathy with the cause of constitutional government.

As a border community in a sectional quarrel, this feeling could not be unanimous. There were some who were loyal to the Union, and this minority, obtaining control by reason of the bayonets of the Federal power, gave the weight of State authority to their claims, and we find Maryland regiments and Maryland batteries (Maryland at least in name,) responding to the call of the Federal President. * * * It is conceded that there were those who honestly supported the national authority) and the brilliant record of Maryland soldiers who "wore the blue" is cherished and prized as the common glory of the State by none more dearly than those of her sons who " wore the gray." As in the days of the Stuarts, the hearts of the loyalists were " o'er the water with Charlie," so was it in Maryland. Her body bound and shackled, her heart was unchained, and her sympathies were with the followers of Lee and Jackson beyond the Potomac. * * * A prominent officer, after inspection of the records of the office of the Adjutant General of the army in Richmond, estimated that there were 20,000 Marylanders in the service of the Confederate States. The organizations officially recognized as from Maryland were as follows: First and Second Maryland Infantry, First and Second Maryland Cavalry, First (Andrews and Dement), Second (Baltimore Light), Third (Latrobe), Fourth (Chesapeake), Maryland Artillery. Their aggregate strength was some 4,000 men. With the exception of the last named battery, which served with distinguished honor with the army in the West, it is enough to say, in the language of Gen. Ewell, referring to the First Maryland Infantry: " The history of the First Maryland Infantry is the history of the valley campaign," the history of the Army of Northern Virginia cannot be written without giving the history of these commands of the Maryland Line. From the early days of the war, from Manasas to Malvern Hill, from the valley to Gettysburg, from the defense of Petersburg to Appomattox, was their valor and efficiency conspicuous. 

From the beginning at Harper's Ferry, in '61, to the end at Appomattox, in '63, they maintained the same high character and bearing, and the record of their deeds, the reputation of their commanders of Buchanan and Hollins, of Trimble, Elzey, Winder, Stuart, Johnson, Herbert, Ridgley Brown, Gilmor, Andrews, Wm. Brown, and Breathed, are held in veneration and affection by all familiar with the military history of the Confederacy, and have made for Maryland a name equal if not above other names in the admiration of a heroic people.

The State of Maryland can well be proud of its sons of the Maryland Line of 1861 '65, as it has always been of their forefathers of the Revolution and the subsequent wars of 1812 and with Mexico, An honorable, brave people are never forgetful of their veteran soldiers, and the fact that the Federal Government has so generously provided for those of her sons who wore the blue but make more pronounced the obligation of our Mother State to care for their unfortunate brothers who, in ragged gray jackets, represented her in the Confederate ranks, and, to their honor be it said. in this pious purpose the Union citizens of the State have been willing and earnest in their co operation.

Sad indeed was the heart of the poor Maryland Confederate, after the days of Appomattox the cause to which he had devoted his best years, and for which he had so freely risked his life and shed his blood, had failed as the sad good bye was spoken to associates.

The Association of the Maryland Line was formed in 1880, to assist the disabled and the destitute. There was already in existence the Society of the Army and Navy of the Confederate States in Maryland, which was organized in 1871, shortly after the death of Gen. Lee, and it was not proposed to incroach upon, or to displace this organization, but still to cherish it as the parent society, or center of Confederate influence and work. Under the direction of Gen. Bradley T. Johnson, and largely aided by his material assistance, the Association of the Maryland Line made up a fairly complete roster of the various Maryland organizations. In this work they were largely aided by the courtesy of the War Department

in permitting access to such muster rolls as were found in the records of the Adjutant General's office at Richmond, and which were removed to Washington at the close of the war.

Under the auspices of the Society of the Army and Navy of the Confederate States in Maryland, was held in Baltimore, in 1885, a most successful bazaar, the proceeds of which, some $31,000, were being devoted to the care of indigent Confederates and the burial of the dead. Through the medium of this fund, and the contributions of generous friends, the duty of ministering to the wants of the unfortunate was faithfully performed, but as the years rolled on it became painfully apparent that the means at hand were not equal to the emergency, and that the applications for assistance were far beyond the ability to meet. It was ascertained that a number of these gallant old soldiers were finding refuge in the almshouses of the State, and not a few instances came to light of the burial of dead in the unhallowed graves of Potter's Fields. After careful consideration, it was determined to make an effort to establish a Soldiers' Home in Maryland, and to ask that the property known as the Pikesville Arsenal be devoted to that purpose. To this memorial the General Assembly gave ready ear and took prompt affirmative action, and in February, 1888, this property was given by the State to the Association of the Maryland Line for the purpose indicated, and an appropriation of $5,000 per annum was voted for the repair of the property and maintenance of the Home. This property was singularly adapted to the purpose by reason of the character of the building and convenience of location.

During, or shortly after, the Confederate war was over. the arsenal was abandoned as a military post, and in 1880 the Federal Government relinquished the same to the State of Maryland. The commandant in 1860, just preceding the commencement of the war, was that distinguished soldier, Major, afterward Lieut. Gen. Huger. The State, after taking possession of the property, made no practical use of it, in fact, it was an item of expense for several years, by reason of the salary of a custodian. No repairs had been placed on the property for a period of some twenty years, and the condition at the time of the transfer to the care of the Maryland Line was little short of that of a ruin. Work was at once commenced to rescue it from. this sad plight in April, 1888, and in June, the same year, it had so far progressed as to admit of the formal opening and dedication. Appropriate exercises were held, with a large attendance of citizens from Baltimore and the neighboring country. Every year since reunions and like celebrations have taken place, which have been frequently attended by distinguished Confederates, many of whom have been prominent in the national councils of the country.

The administration of the Home rests with a Board of Governors of the Association of the Maryland Line, and is under the immediate supervision of a Board of Managers, who are largely aided in their duties by the labors of a Board of Visitors, which is made up of well known ladies, who give the benefit of their counsel, and are untiring in their efforts in caring for the sick and ministering to their wants. The command of the Home is intrusted to a superintendent, Mr. W. H. Pope, a gallant soldier of the Maryland Line, who, with his devoted wife, have faithfully given their entire service to the institution.

It was determined from the first to make the institution in fact what it was in name a home for those who sought its sheltering care and this view was held in the furnishing of the rooms, and the rules enacted for the government of the inmates. These last have been framed so as to insure the least restraint possible with the maintenance of proper discipline and decorum. The separate buildings have been named after distinguished Maryland Confederate soldiers, or sailors, and the rooms have been furnished as memorials by the friends or relatives of some loved one who gave his life for the cause, or who was conspicuous for his gallantry or devotion. These rooms have been furnished in a substantial manner with many of the comforts and elegancies found in private homes, and at an estimated cost of $10,000, which expense has been defrayed by the generous friends undertaking this important and interesting feature. As a result, the management have been relieved almost entirely of the great expense incident to the furnishing of the Home, and their means made available for the necessary repairs of the property and the purchase of proper equipment and supplies required by an institution of this character.

The State has continued to make appropriation, which, supplemented by generous private contributions, both in money and material, have enabled the management to maintain the high standard of comfort originally had in view, and, at the same time, there has been due regard to proper economy.

The total admissions, from the opening in June, 1888, to December 1, 1893, a period of nearly five and a half years, have been 139. Of this number twenty seven have died, three have been suspended or otherwise discharged, the number now borne on the roster is 109.

The library is supplied with many valuable and interesting books and periodicals, the gift of friends, and many newspapers regularly mail their issues without charge.

The total receipts of the Home to September 30, 1893, were $37,620.40,and the expenses $38,195, leaving a deficit as of the above date, $574.60. Of the receipts. the State of Maryland has contributed $27,500, and the remainder is the result of private subscriptions and the proceeds of entertainments, held at various times in the interest of the Home. Included in the item of expenses is the sum of $8,118.42, the cost of repairs to the property.

Here will be found a noble charity, creditable to the honor of our State and the public spirit of our citizens. It is a comfort to the old veterans, who feel that if adversity proves too strong for them in their declining years a haven of rest is here provided, to which they may retire and find refuge, and at the same time lose none of their self respect, nor suffer in the estimation of those whose experience in life is more fortunate, and it is a standing illustration to the young that our loved Commonwealth reveres manliness and courage, and is proud of its military record of the past, and is not unmindful of its heroes in their old age.

John Harleston, Charleston, S.C.: "I have been a subscriber to your paper since March. Have taken nearly all that have been published since 1865, and know of none superior to yours, and wish you all prosperity."


DURING THE FIRST SIEGE OF VICKSBURG, 1862.

In the summer of 1862, during the first siege of Vicksburg, the First Kentucky Brigade was sent to that city as a sort of guard of honor to the heavy batteries then lining the shores of the Mississippi above and below Vicksburg. The regiments did duty in town alternately, which consisted mainly in lying under the shade of the trees in the beautiful grassy lawns, with which the city and its suburbs abounded, and, at night, watching the course of the immense mortar shells fired from the yankee fleets above and below the city. These shells generally passed over us apparently a half mile high, and their course could be distinctly traced by a burning fuse attached to each.

On the morning of the 4th day of July, 1862, we naturally supposed the Federals would celebrate the day by an extraordinary bombardment of the city, and thus make things somewhat lively for us. The sun arose with unusual splendor: expectation was on tip toe, but to our surprise a silence, profound as death, rested upon the combatants until just at noon, when both fleets opened fire with every gun. They rent the heavens with the fury of exploding shells, the shore batteries instantly responded, and for half an hour these tremendous engines of death vomited forth their horrible contents, and then ceased as suddenly as they began, not another gun being fired during the day.

On the following day the Fourth Regiment, with a battery, was ordered to a point on the Mississippi River just below Warrenton, fourteen miles from Vicksburg. This place was a wide, swampy bottom on the east side of the river, and occupied a bend in the river, which, with the bluffs on the east, inclosed several hundred acres. This bottom had been overflowed, and the cottonwood trees which grew on a considerable portion of it had caught and held large quantities of brush, drift wood, etc. Our mission was to conceal ourselves and our battery in this drift, near the river, and pounce upon any steamer which might undertake to pass up the river. It did not take us long to conceal ourselves in this wilderness, and plant our guns along the river bank. Of course they were nicely masked sentinels were posted down the river. Five days passed in the pleasant occupations of eating, sleeping and fighting mosquitoes without a single alarm or sign of the enemy. On the fifth day the pickets sent in information that a small craft, with several men in it, was crossing the river from the Louisiana shore, a mile or so below us.

The Colonel immediately ordered Sergeant to select a squad of six men to investigate the movement. As one of this detachment, we proceeded down the river as fast a.s possible, and concealed ourselves in the bushes, near the point which the batteaux seemed to be making for. The moment it struck shore we sprang from our hiding places, with cocked guns, and demanded a surrender. The enemy consisted of four lusty negro men and one woman. With these we captured several bundles of old clothing, bed quilts, and other trumpery prized by negroes. Had we dropped from the clouds, out of a clap of thunder, the poor darkies could not have been more astonished and terrified. With dilated eyes and trembling limbs they awaited death, which they evidently thought was at hand. In answer to the Sergeant's inquiry, "Who are you? Where are you going? " one of them answered supplicatingly, " We 'se nothing but poor niggers, massa. trying to git wid our folks on dis side of de river." Ordering them to shoulder their baggage, we led them to the Colonel, who gathered from them that they were the slaves of a Louisiana planter, who had fled from his home on the approach of the yankees, leaving them to take care of themselves, and they, being scarcely less terrified at the name of yankee than their master, were seeking to reach their friends and relatives in Mississippi. The Colonel sent them on their way.

On the morning of the 12th day of our ambush, about an hour before dawn, the pickets reported a steamboat coming up the river. When she had arrived nearly opposite the battery the guns opened on her with shot and shell. Her lights were almost instantly extinguished, and her speed increased, but before she could get out of range a number of shot struck, as we could distinctly hear them crashing through her timbers. They failed, however, to disable her, and she sped on her way up the river. It was now apparent that our longer stay would be useless. The Federals would almost certainly send a gunboat to investigate, and avenge the insult if possible. We had no particular desire to tackle one of these monsters, so we limbered up and pulled up and pulled out about dawn, and in a few hours had gained the summit of the high bluffs back of Warrenton, a few miles nearer the city, where we had a fine view of the river. As we came into view a flat black, villainous looking gunboat was just squaring herself in the river opposite our recent hiding place: and it was with some satisfaction that we contemplated our safe distance as she poured a broadside from her heavy guns into the unoccupied timber. They shelled the woods.

*******  List of dead

A. P. HILL'S SIGNAL CORPS.

This did not mean a big army of men, with guns, drums and flying artillery. A. P. Hill's signal corps consisted of Capt. R. H. T. Adams, of Lynchburg, Va., Sergeant Pat Vermillion, also of Lynchburg, Wm. Daniel, ex State Senator, from Clarksville, Tenn., John Moring, of Durnam N. C. when last heard from he had finished eight years in the State Senate, Peter Eaves, from Rutherfordton, N. C. lost sight of, Geo. Christian and brother Dave, of Appomattox, Va., James Featherston, of Virginia lost sight of, James Driver, of the First Tennessee died of smallpox, Hal W. Manson (the writer), of the Seventh Tennessee, was detailed to take his place, Henry Ii. Pope, of Rome, Ga., B. F. Mayhew, of New Berne, N. C., now dead, and a few others that were detailed for division headquarters.

These young men for most of them were under twenty one were used to transmit messages by optic telegraphy from one part of the army to the other. Sometimes the line would extend as far as forty miles, and, as in the case of Harper's Ferry, the plan of battle was telegraphed over the signal line. These signals were made with different colored flags after a white flag a yard square with a red square in center. This flag was used when they had a green background, such as pines, or a wheat field or grassy knoll. When they had the sky for a background, as from the top of a mountain, a dark flag, with a white square in the center to distinguish it from a black one, was used. At night torches of copper tubes filled with turpentine were used, one placed on the ground in front of the operator and the other on the end of a short pole in his hand, which he moved right and left, front and circle, making movements that could be easily understood with the aid of a good glass from ten to twenty miles at the next station. On the march the signal men could not be used as such, and were used as couriers and scouts. Another of their duties was to translate messages into cipher and back again. Thus if General Lee wished to communicate with President Davis the message was put in cipher, Joe Cabiness alone knowing what it was at Lee's headquarters, and a trusted man at the President's office would read the message to him.

I cannot hope to follow the fortunes of the " knights of the crossed flags," all the way from the day I was detailed and reported to Capt. Adams, and was placed under the management of Harry Pope to learn the signal alphabet on the heights of the Rappahanock, or the long march at Gettysburg, where the first bullet was fired at a signal man. We returned to Orange County and spent the long winter on dark's Mountain. Then came the march and fight from there to Richmond and Petersburg, until the final charge of Grant, the 2d of July, 18(15, when our beloved Hill was killed. Joe Cabiness was shot in the neck and captured, the writer lost a leg, and was captured also.
Our life in camp was one round of fun and gaiety. George Christian's yellow boy, Jess, did the cooking and stealing for our mess, and Gus McClellan's popeyed negro Tip, with his assistants, kept up the corners for the couriers, fed his Mars Gus' horse, blacked his boots, washed his clothes, and brightened his sabre and spurs. Gus himself was a character. He was a brother of the great Alabama writer, " Betsy Hamilton." He could sing a song, tell a good story, dance "Lucy Long," and would fight the d l, and "give him the go." Never did old Talladega send to the war a braver soldier than Gus, or a more faithful negro than Tip. Gus is dead, and Tip was caught by a bright eyed dusky damsel about Petersburg and returned to Alabama to visit " Old Marster and Mars Gus," after twenty years' of hard work, thinking and dreaming of "old Talladega, Ala." Alas! his homecoming was sad in the extreme! He went at once from the station to the old plantation, through the fields, over the well known foot path straight to " Old Marster's room." He would see him that night, and his brothers the next day. When he knocked on the door he was answered by a stranger. He called, " Old Marster, its me, your boy Tip what went with Marge Gus to the war, I made money nuf to come back, and I is here. Open the do', please sir!" But the place was in the hands of strangers. "Old Master" was under the marble, "Marse" Gus dead too, and the others scattered in different States. But his mistress, " Betsy Hamilton," has told this story and placed it where it will live and be dramatized when she, too, shall have been gathered with the sleepers under the oaks.

During the several months seven of the signal corps were stationed on Clark's Mountain, in Orange County, Va. Here at the station we spent the day, leaving the guard, consisting of a Lieutenant and ten men, to look after it in the night. We would mount our horses and ride down to the house T. Preist's whose cottage nestled in a cove at the head of a valley. On his table the best of garden truck was found, and in his cellar were divers kegs and long necked bottles filled with blackberry and cherry brandies. This was our boarding house. Across the field was Bob Sales' place and his lovely daughter, over the hill was the Bushrod Brown and the beautiful Epperson girls also. At the Rapid Ann Station was Miss Genevieve Peyton, and on the mountain side the Misses Terrell. Down near the river was the regiment of Barksdale's Mississippians, in one company of ninety men "seventy five were good fiddlers." We cultivated these fellows and they cultivated us. We had a dance three nights out of the week, and went courting two out of the other four. We were in full view of the enemy's camp across the river, and hundreds of officers, citizens, and ladies used to visit the mountain top and our courtesy would be at times taxed to the utmost to show them the attention we wished to.

Gen. Lee would come up and spend hours studying the situation with his splendid glasses, and the glorious Stuart would dash up, always with a lady, and a pretty one, too. I wonder if the girl is yet alive who rode the General's fine horse and raced with him to charge our station. When they had reached the level plateau, and Stuart had left her in care of one of us and took the other off to one side and questioned the very sweat out of him about the enemy's position, he was Gen. Stuart then, but when be got back and lifted the beauty into the saddle and rode off humming a breezy air, immortalized by Swiney and John Esten Cook, he was Stuart the beau.

The next day his command was on the enemy's flank thirty miles away. The great Gordon came up and showed us how to steady the eyes with the fingers so as to look a long time. Old Gen. Ewell, with his old flea bitten gray and crutches, was a frequent visitor.

WAR WAIF IN THE ARMY.

I enlisted as a private in the Second Louisiana Volunteers in 1861. My first real soldiering was on the Yorktown Peninsula, in Virginia. While there, or at Suffolk (I forget which), there strolled into camp a. young boy, scarcely over 10 or 12 years of age, who attached himself to one of the neighboring regiments. Who he was, or where he came from, I cannot now recall. He was looked upon as " no man's child," and as such found genial fellowship among the soldiers. I soon realized that he was a Cosmopolitan, and at home anywhere, for I next saw him the pet of the First South Carolina Volunteer?. How long he stayed with them I cannot say. It was fully a year before I saw him again. His small form and boyish face were a great contrast to the men among whom he mingled. I remember then how odd it seemed to see that lad in a camp, but he was truly "the child of the regiment." After we had fallen back to Richmond, and after those terrible seven days' of battle, the army was reorganized and the troops brigaded by States, so I lost sight of our Carolina neighbors, and also the boy.

At the second battle of Manassas, on the 29th of August, 1862, our brigade (Stark's poor fellow, he fell at Sharpsburg), was lying in the woods nearly opposite that "terrible deep cut" when the dripping, spattering fire of the Yankee skirmishers drove in our out lookers (as "Old Jack" didn't have a counter skirmish line) the cry " F o r w a r d" rang along our lines, and we advanced and ran almost into the Yankees, who, giving us a deadly volley, fell back rapidly across a field and into the woods beyond, where a battery, supported by a swarm of troops, was posted. Nothing checked us. Under a withering fire of minnies and canister we pressed on, Bradley T. Johnson riding ahead, with his sword run through his hat, waving us on, until we waved him out of our line of fire. When we arrived within about one hundred yards of the battery the line was halted, and under this raking fire the allignment was corrected, and the men "right dressed" to be shot down.

I have thought often since that the command of halt, under such a fire might have been heroic, but it certainly was not wise. However, not a man faltered. Again, "Forward!" and we drove straight for the guns. Just then I felt a thud, a sting, a twist around and fell. A minnie had struck my pocket Bible edgewise, and passing nearly through the New Testament part, dug a. trench across my left side into the flesh. With the blood spurting from the wound I started rearward, while our boys brave fellows went up and over the battery, scattering its supports like chaff. As T struggled back over the field, the dead and wounded, blue and gray alike, lying around, 1 heard a great rumbling on my left and turned and saw that our guns were plunging to the front, under lash and shout, to seize the hills whence to pour shot into the then retreating foe. I can see them now tumbling, bouncing, and surging to gain that front. What else did I see ? So close I could nearly touch him, the little boy sitting on the limber of one of the pieces, his eyes aflame, his hat waving, his treble voice shouting excitedly, and his whole being lit up and aglow with the terrible magnetism of battle, cheering on the line. That was the last that I saw of him. He passed on and was lost in the cloud and smoke of the field, but the memory of that inspiring scene will never fade.

It has well been said that truth is stranger than fiction, the sequel to the above sketch (which is absolutely true) proves the truth of this adage.

The sketch was first published in the Detroit Free Press on the 23rd of April, 1891. Finding out the address of Col. Bradley T. Johnson I sent him the M.S., which he published in the Baltimore Sun in the December following. I received from the Colonel a most flattering letter, in which he said:. " Your graphic description of the " War Waif" touched my heart. I have given it to the Baltimore Sun. That defense of the railroad cut was a feat of arms. I had 800 muskets and Stark hardly 900, and we held it against 18,000 (Fitz John Porter's whole corps). We did as well as men could do, but the real work was done by Stephen D. Lee's guns, on our right, which enfiladed and tore up the assaulting column. But that charge! Wasn't it glorious? There was genuine, real, soul stirring, blood thrilling gaudium certamini ! Those days of our golden prime!"
The Colonel, in the above, has confused the defense of the railroad cut with the charge I describe. The incident I refer to occurred on the 29th, while that defense of the railroad took place on the 30th of August, 1862. But this is not the coincidence I started out to refer to.

It so happened that when the sketch appeared in the Free Press that the hero of my sketch was a subscriber to that paper and " read himself" in the article. He at once wrote to that paper inquiring who the author was, as only my initials, "A. L. S." were signed to the piece. The information was furnished him and I received several communications from him. That he is the identical "boy" I have no doubt. A few days before last Christmas he paid me a visit, and we passed several days recounting the scenes in " Old Virginny." His name is W. J. Pucket, and his residence is Armstead, Miss. He tells me that at the time referred to he was just 13 years of age, that he belonged to the Louisiana Guard Artillery, and that he surrendered at Concord Station, near Appomattox, when our cause finally collapsed.
CLEBURNE'S BRIGADE AT SHILOH. J. A. Wheeler, Salado, Texas: I give the VETERAN a brief account of Shiloh as I saw it, being a private in the Twenty third Tennessee Regiment (Pat Cleburne's Brigade). On the morning of April 6, '62, when the entire line moved forward, our brigade had to face a battery of twelve guns, eight 20 pound rifles (brass), and four 12pound Napoleon guns. We were ordered to halt and tie down in a deep ravine while this battery was shelling our position at a fearful rate. Just in our front was a ridge, a peach orchard, and the Federal encampment. General Cleburne told us to prepare for a charge. Soon it was ordered and we moved forward at double quick, passed through the encampment, down the slope on the north side of the ridge near to a branch. Here a line of infantry rose up and poured such a destructive volley into our ranks that we recoiled and fell back to the first ravine. Here we rallied, and General Cleburne came to us again and said, "Boys, don't be discouraged, that is not the first charge that was ever repulsed, fix bayonets and give them steel." Then he ordered, "Forward! Charge! " We leaped forward with a deafening cheer and drove the infantry out of the ravine, but firing from the battery and a line of infantry was so heavy just in rear of the battery that we again fell back, with great loss, but soon reformed, and were ready for the third charge, when a Louisiana brigade was brought up to our support. Another charge was ordered and we moved forward over the dead and wounded, this time to reach the goal that had cost the lives of many of our best men. But the struggle was not yet over for the battery, as the boys in blue fired some of the guns when we were within ten feet of their muzzles. Here we had a hand to hand contest over the guns, but we were triumphant, and this fine battery of twelve guns was ours. Cleburne's Brigade was composed of the Seventeenth, Twenty third and Twenty fourth Tennessee and First Arkansas Regiments.

I cannot close this article without saying that the men of this battery were the bravest men we ever had to deal with. They were worthy of our steel, not one of them surrendered with a whole hide. They had been in the United States service for twenty years.

If this should fall into the hands of any soldier, on either side in this charge, I would be glad to correspond with him.

FEASTING AND FIGHTING

The following incident is but a remnant of the spice box that, like pride, had a fall, or rather a more expeditious send off during Gen. Forrest's raid on Paducah, Ky.: Maj. Thompson led an attack on Fort Anderson, a huge affair, surrounding the Marine Hospital. Close by and overlooking the fort was the two story brick building of Dr. Bassett. Some six or eight young Kentuckians, among whom were the Douglas and Meriwether boys, thought that this house presented some fine strategic points of value, both as a commissary department and "shooting box," the big 32 pounders in the fort could not be handled with any degree of safety if any party of sharp shooters should happen to occupy the upper story. Accompanied by their Captain, the house was at once taken possession of, and Mrs. Bassett, delighted with the visit of the " Southern boys," made at once extensive preparations for their comfort. The large dining table was taken up stairs, for the greater convenience of her guests, and heaped with all the delicacies and good things that the house, cellar or pantry afforded. And nobly did the famished defenders of a lost cause respond to the tempting viands. The battle had now begun in earnest, and '' the boys," with their mouths full, sent their unerring missiles among the enemy's cannoniers, to their utter discomfort and demoralization. The huge thirty two in front of the house could not be fired. Every time a head appeared it was promptly scalped. The boys enjoyed the fun immensely, and divided their time between " shootin' an' eatin'." After many failures, one artilleryman succeeded in pulling the lanyard, and a storm of grape and canister whistled through the house, without, however, touching the boys or the " vittels." Douglas remarked that this was the best place to fight he had ever struck, and as long as the ammunition on the table held out he was willing "to fight it out on that line if it took all summer."

The enemy made great efforts to reload the gun, but every time a man appeared a whistling messenger, laden with "pie," stopped the performance. It had become intensely interesting and amusing on one side, and exceedingly dangerous on the other. The enemy soon realized the state of affairs, and took all available means to dislodge the sharp shooters. The trouble was that the little band in the " Bassett house " had command of nearly every gun in the fort, and not only stopped proceedings against themselves, but hampered and annoyed the gunners on the opposite side, so as to prevent anything more than straggling shots, that did little or no execution. The gunboats, however, made active demonstrations in favor of the fort, and one of the shells, intended no doubt for the Bassett house, cut Maj. Thompson in two. But the end was nearer than "the boys" imagined. An unlucky shell from the enemy, striking a little lower, hit the edge of the table and made a promiscuous mingling of china, wood, meat, iron, vegetables, glassware and pie, the " tout ensemble" of a well regulated dinner table. It beat a "bull in the china shop." To see the beautiful walls plastered with pie, and the blackberry jam and preserves dripping mournfully from the ceiling was just a little too much for them. "Boys," said Meriwether, "let's go." The Captain tearfully removed a lump of plum jelly from his eye and, said, " You 're right." The defenders having left, the enemy immediately riddled the house with solid shot and grape, making a complete wreck of the noble building,


Meeting a refugee from the fort some months afterward, and regaling him with the narrative above stated, he remarked that he was one who tried to work that gun, and escaped the "rebel bullets," " but," says he, " I smelt the patching! " " How was that?" I answered. "Well, they sent a ball right under my nose, taking off a part of my mustache."

GENERAL LEE TO THE REAR.

E. J. (DOCK) PARRENT, WACO, TEXAS.

Since the columns of your magazine are open to answering queries relative to incidents of the war, I reply to Capt. W. T. Gass, of Camp Ben McCulloch, Mt. Vernon, Texas, relative to General Lee at the Wilderness: I was a member of Company D, Fourth Texas Regiment, Hood's old brigade, commanded at the time by General Gregg, Field's Division, Longstreet's Corps, A. N. Va. Our brigade was composed of the First, Fourth and Fifth Texas, and the Third Arkansas, our regiment (Fourth Texas), if I remember correctly, was on the left, center of the brigade, and the First Texas was formed on our left. We had just filed off of the road, in which we had been moving, and formed in line of battle in an open space a few yards in front of the timber. About that time I saw General Lee ride up and stop on the left wing of the First Texas. A number of us, mostly of the First Texas, gathered around him and begged him to go to the rear, some of the boys saying that they would not go into the fight unless he retired. There were a good many, both up and down the line, yelling, "General Lee to the rear." I was standing by the side of his horse and placed my hand on him, one of the First Texas had hold of his bridle rein. I do not remember whether his hat was off or not at the time. I know we told him that if he would go to the rear we would whip the yankees. I am confident that no one man is entitled to the credit or honor of causing General Lee to go to the rear, every man there would have gladly died to save one drop of his precious blood, and I am confident that General Lee saw a determination in the faces of his men to conquer or die, and felt confident that he could trust the battle to them. He turned his horse and was soon out of sight. We were then ordered to charge, and the result of the day's work is well known.

I am sure there are some of our old brigade yet living who remember the incident as vividly as I do. I was detailed as division scout, and had the privilege of going and coming as I pleased, but when my company was ordered into action, I always went with them.

I am a member of Pat Cleburne Camp, No. 222, U. C. V., Waco, Texas, and am highly pleased with the CONFEDERATE VETERAN, and think that every Confederate soldier should subscribe for it, and keep it always before his children.

THE "Jackson Day" (January 8) occurs so near publication time of this VETERAN that reference to the Hermitage, by which is located the Tennessee Soldiers' Home, seems appropriate. The picture is an excellent view of the grand hallway at the Hermitage, and gives at once an idea of the dimensions of the home built by General Jackson for his fireside pleasures. The building was constructed upon a broad and liberal plan characteristic of the man. The house contains eleven rooms, all large and superb in style of architecture. The wall paper appearing in the picture, with its liberal background of trees, foliage, and beautiful landscape, is a scene from the history of Telemachus, and represents Ulysses on the Island of Calypson. It has been preserved carefully by the Ladies' Hermitage Association, although it was "in shreds upon the walls" when they got possession. The scenes arc in an excellent state of preservation. The grand stairway is one of the most imposing in any house in the country, and leads to an upper hall of equal dimensions, and ornamented with the same scenes from Telemachus. General Jackson procured this paper from Paris in 1836, when the Hermitage was rebuilt after having been destroyed by fire while he was President.

Joseph Brunson, Aiken, S. C., Dec. 24: "I see the inquiry concerning who it was that took General Lee's horse by the bridle in the battle of the Wilderness to prevent his personal peril, and the three versions of the affair. I was then a member of A. P. Hill's corps, Wilcox's division and McGowan's brigade. We had been fighting all day and all night. Early next morning we were being flanked by the enemy, and were falling back, when we met Longstreet's corps. They formed on our right. I remember it well. I was so glad to see them. Only a veteran can appreciate the situation. I saw General Lee ride to the left of the line and then to the front, as though he intended to lead the charge. He was in front of a Texas brigade. I saw a private go from the ranks and catch his horse by the bridle and lead him to the rear, and then the brigade charged. I couldn't hear a word that was said, By all means give the Texas private the honor of the noble deed.

A pathetic poem, but too long for use here, comes concerning Lieut. Josiah W. Nance, who served under General Forrest and was killed near Cuba Landing on the Tennessee River while bearing dispatches for his commander, June 10, '64. He lies buried in a quiet, well kept graveyard near the scene of his death. "Loving hands placed his body in a hero's grave, and loving hearts will cherish the memory of his brave deeds and truth and loyalty forever."

Concerning the price let there be no misunderstanding. It is not increased as a speculation. Friends who have been so diligent that any favor asked by them would be granted occasionally say that the money was handed them and by some mishap they failed to send it in time. It is considered necessary and right to increase the price, as there are many ways for helping the cause espoused which will be a tax upon the VETERAN. Just as fast as practicable it will be entered for comrades who cannot pay, and ministers will be supplied at seventy five cents. By the by, Rev. W. A. Nelson, of Hawkinsville, Ga., in sending a dollar, writes that he did not renew before January so that he might send that amount instead of fifty cents, "because it's worth a dollar."

In this spirit a Confederate organization is raising a fund to supply the VETERAN to those who can't afford to subscribe. It was expected to report its action in this VETERAN. One man subscribed ten dollars to the fund, and it was expected to secure ten times as much before reporting.

J. W. Tucker, Beachville, Tenn., the first person to call at office and renew at the increased price, was a veteran with no hand left and but one arm. The clerk had to finger the money from his pocket. Such a man should have the VETERAN free. Part of his money was promptly re mailed to him. Hasten the day when such a man will be required to have no thought of the morrow as to life's necessities.

O. W. Case, Superintendent of the Pacific Express Company, St. Louis, was the first to remit at $1 for the VETERAN. He is a Union veteran : " Herewith is $1 to pay for subscription to your magazine for 1894. I like its kindly tone. I rather think I am in favor of the organization of the ' United Veterans of America' as begun at some point in Texas."

RECORD THE TRUTH FOR HISTORY.

The VETERAN is published in the interest of Confederates. It is patriotic and progressive. Its wish is to forgive and forget bitter memories of the war in the broadest sense. A digression, however, from this rule is apparent in the article about " Carpet bag Rule in Arkansas." Its author has the bitter memory of a murdered father. He simply reviews the " Brooks and Baxter war "in Arkansas. Is it well to reprint these facts now? This query is of the Union veteran. There is back of it a much graver question. It concerns prison life. The most singular exactions from our victorious compatriots is their general unanimity of sentiment against publishing the history of prison life from their side. Dr. John A. Wyeth, of New York, who served in the Confederate army from Alabama, dared to write an article on the subject, entitled "Cold Cheer at Camp Morton," and it stirred the enmity of Grand Army veterans to a shocking degree. He engaged to deliver a professional lecture at Indianapolis afterward, and the bitterness engendered by his truthful narrative was so great that his friends advised him to decline the invitation. Dr. Wyeth is one of the best accredited men of the entire South. Before this thing occurred one of the first surgeons who served in the Federal army told me that he loved Wyeth so well that he didn't like to think they were ever against each other. Why not let the whole truth be known?

A young lady of Rock Island, Ill., was deploring the treatment of Union soldiers in Southern prisons to a Confederate when he asked her to remember that with  all the advantages of the Union side in medicine, clothing and food, the percentage of deaths was greater among Confederates in Northern prisons. She was astounded at the remark and said, "Did we have your men in prison?" She had been reared close to the place that many gallant Southerners laid down their lives, and yet had no conception that these deplorable conditions ever existed but on one side. Do, good sirs, let the truth be recorded. It will help your children to appreciate the sacrifice of your, and their, fellow citizens in the South for the principles instilled by the founders of our great republic.

We are not afraid to publish the truth, but in doing so we want to feel that you concur in the spirit that ours were not more heartless and barbarous than your own leaders. We all remember that war is terrible, and are not complaining. One good moral effect would be to discourage rash people from agitations that threaten the peace of the general public.

CAPT. L. J. DAWDY, a Union veteran, of Peoria, Ill., says : '' Through the kindness of my old friend, Capt. B. F. Smith, of Shelbyville, Tenn., I have received each number of the first volume. * * * I have read each number of the VETERAN with much interest, I like the spirit of fairness toward soldiers of the Union army which seems to pervade its columns, and which, I believe, will cause its acceptance by any veteran on either side. Brave men are always generous, and as no greater sacrifice and heroism were ever shown than by soldiers in the late war, none should be more generous with each other. Many incidents have been published with which I am acquainted, and I could not help being interested in seeing the standpoint from 'tother side.' 

DEATH OF CORPORAL HENRY CORDES.

The VETERAN begins its second year in deep sorrow for the death of Mr. Henry Cordes, of Washington, Ga. The sad announcement came by postal, and then in papers by Miss Gertrude Cordes and R. T. Richards. Pneumonia was too severe upon the infirm patriot. Henry Cordes wrote more letters and sent subscribers at more different times to the VETERAN than any other person, and never asked a favor of it.

By agreement we were to meet at the Augusta reunion in November, and in describing himself he wrote: "When you see a man in a suit of Confederate gray, with a small cane as a staff, and the ugliest man there, he will be yours truly, Henry Cordes." He was sought and found promptly, and the memory of the plain, true man has been a peculiar pleasure. He was made aid to staff of General Evans, of U. C. V., but claimed the title still of Corporal. His home standing was not known, but he had rallied again and again his people in behalf of the VETERAN, and I had to urge him to deduct the cost of remitting subscriptions. It is pleasant to see in the Washington Gazette this strong tribute from Mr. Motte Smith, that " Mr. Cordes lived more in touch with more people than anybody else in Wilkes County."

Henry Cordes was a German, and 59 years old. He enlisted with the Irvin Artillery in 1861, and served on to the end of the war. In compliance with his request, this " soul of honor" was buried in his Confederate suit, with badges attached. The coffin was draped with a genuine Confederate battle flag. The funeral procession was one of the longest ever seen in Washington. "All the carriages and buggies of the town were in it," and many from the country. Confederate veterans were pall bearers. Captain Callaway's company, the lrvin Guards, served as guards of honor. Comrade Cordes left five daughters, two of whom are married. The youngest child is the only son. Comrade, brother, farewell. No friend was more faithful to the VETERAN, and its editor honors your memory with a grateful heart.

AN exquisite Christmas remembrance comes to the VETERAN from Richard R. Foster, Adjutant of the Massachusetts Soldiers' Home. On the front a tattered flag, the stars and stripes, is suspended in the blue sky, and an eagle has lighted upon it, his broad wings so extended that he seems to support rather than be a weight to the limp ensign, the shreds of which are not rippled by breeze. Thanks are returned. Brave Southerners will ever return the spirit of greeting from valiant foes who bring the olive and extend it as to equals in all that makes manly men and true patriots.

A WRITER in the Forum asserts that there are 400,000 more pensioners on the government pension rolls than there were soldiers in the Confederate service. A second curious fact, derived from another source, is, that while our pension list has grown enormously in numbers in recent years, the list of pensioners on the State of Georgia, which pays a certain amount to men wounded in the Confederate service, has steadily and regularly decreased.

ONE of the most beautiful women residing now in the national capital, expressing her regard for this little periodical, said, "I had rather have my picture in the VETERAN than in the White House." Honor to her. She represents a sentiment that will live beyond her generation.

AT its last reunion the Forty fourth Georgia elected the following officers: Maj. John C. Key, President, Col. J. W. Beck, Vice President, S. M. Buchanan, Secretary. They selected Fayetteville as the place of meeting in 1894, and Wednesday after the first Sunday in August as the time.

GENERAL EARLY'S CAMPAIGNS.

James T. Lyon, of the Forty third Battalion, Virginia Cavalry : I have never criticised or undertaken to correct any article appearing in the CONFEDERATE VETERAN, so dear to us old Confederates, but the article of James B. Clay, in the September number, correcting one published in the St. Louis Globe Democrat on the " Campaigns of General Early in the Valley," is also erroneous. He fails to mention General Rhodes and his Division. That brave and patriotic officer deserves to be mentioned with honor in the battle of Chancellorsville, under General Jackson. He distinguished himself, and in every battle thereafter fought by the Army of Northern Virginia he bore a conspicuous part, up to the 19th of September, 1864. At the battle of Winchester, in his heroic attempt to stay the tide of battle and to retrieve the fortunes of the day, he fell at the head of his splendid Division, lamented by all who knew him. Now, after Early took command in the Valley, there was but one Corps permanent there, and that was the eld Second Corps, commanded by General Early in person, and it comprised the Divisions of Generals Rhodes, Ransom, Breckinridge, and Gordon. Breckinridge never commanded a Corps under Early. General Heath's Division was not with Early in his Maryland campaign. Heath belonged to the Third Corps, under A. P. Hill, and on the 10th of July, 1864. according to the returns of the Army of Northern Virginia of that date, was with his Corps at Petersburg. General Early never commanded in Southwest Virginia, and was never removed from his command, and never went to Europe until after the war. After the battle of Winchester General Breckinridge was sent to command in Southwest Virginia, and appointed from there to the War Department in February, 1865. We find General Early in command at that time the early spring of 1865 at Waynesboro in the valley to protect and defend Rockfish Gap, in the Blur ridge Mountains. About that time Sheridan moved up the valley with 9,000 cavalry and mounted infantry. Early only had a small force, consisting of Wharton's Division, 1,800 infantry, a small force of cavalry and some artillery a force entirely inadequate for the task. There was a good deal of disaffection among the troops, and, without hardly a show of fight, Sheridan broke through the mountain, passed into Eastern Virginia, laid waste to that country, and joined Grant at Petersburg. We here find Early, with his faithful few, following and harassing Sheridan at every turn. It is said that Early displayed more heroic valor with his faithful few than he did with his victorious army in Maryland.

H. M. Miller, of West Point, Va., who was of Cox's Brigade, and Rhodes' Division, writes: In the September VETERAN appeared an article headed, " Jubal A. Early and His Campaigns." in which James B. Clay, of General Breckinridge's staff, defends "Old Jube" (as his boys loved to call him). General Early needs no defense from any one. History will take care of him. Comrade Clay is "mixed" on the battle of Winchester. He says that Early had engaged, at the battle of Winchester, the Divisions of Gordon, Wharton. Ransom, and Heath. Now, where was our glorious Rhodes, who was killed that day at the head of his Division? I don't think General Harry Heath could have been there in Rhodes' place and I not have known it, and then General Rhodes was killed that day, as I understand it. The Union Army were at a place called Smithville, between Winchester and Harper's Ferry. Ransom was left at Winchester. Gordon and Rhodes left for Martinsburg, Rhodes stopping at Bunker Hill and Gordon going on to Martinsburg. Gordon had arrived at Martinsburg, where he was expected to remain all night, but was ordered back, as Sheridan had attacked Ransom. Ransom held him in check until Rhodes got up from Bunker Hill, and then the fight was continued until General Gordon came up. We were compelled to fall back through Strausburg to " Fisher's Hill " (not Fisher's Mill), where we stopped. This is a plain statement of facts. I could write all night on " Early's Valley Campaign," but I could not have General Rhodes left out after the glorious fight he made that day.

CONFEDERATE DEAD AT INDIANAPOLIS.

During the last session of the National Encampment of the G. A. R., at Indianapolis, the News, of that city, published everything obtainable that was of interest to visitors. The following is an extract: The graves of rebels who died in Indianapolis prisons lie leveled and unmarked in the old cemetery at Greenlawn. Coming North in the time of winter, thinly clad and nearly starved when captured, to a climate of rigors to which they were strangers, they died in large numbers in spite of the humane care extended to them by the citizens. Every available building was converted into a hospital, and all these were filled by the prisoners. The firm having the contract to bury the prison dead was required to keep a record of the grave of each for future identification. The man who made the burials still lives in this city. He is Elijah Hedges, 83 North Noble street. He has the name, command and address of all those who were buried by him during the war, when he was in the employ of Weaver & Williams, the firm having the contract. Mr. Hedges states that there were 2,172 rebel prisoners buried by him in the old cemetery at Greenlawn. I have a list showing the location, by number, of each grave, so that, with the exception of eleven who were not known, all can be identified if desired. There is a grave every two feet, containing a prisoner. The largest number buried in one day was nine. Inquiry was made some months ago by those interested in these graves as to whether they could be identified, and what the cost would be of putting in order the plat occupied by them. The promoters of the plan were much pleased, but stated that owing to the depletion of funds collected for the purpose, in putting in order other cemeteries, the improvement of the plat here would have to be postponed until more money could be secured. The hope was expressed that by next year the graves might receive the attention they so much need. At one time, owing to the advance of business interests in that part of the city, it was found necessary to remove 300 or 400 of the prisoners' bones to another part of the graveyard. Talking on the subject, Mr. Hedges made this remarkable statement: " During the war I buried in all 12,000 persons, and, according to the habit of undertakers, I have the names and addresses of all who were known. During my lifetime I have buried 49,872 people."

THE BATTLE OF STAUNTON RIVER BRIDGE, VA.

By J. T. EASON, COLD WATER, MISS., WHO SERVED IN THE SEVENTEENTH MISSISSIPPI REGIMENT.

In June, 1864, Major Cooper, of Memphis, then Quartermaster of the Forty second Mississippi Infantry, and I were returning from short furloughs (my first and only one during the war) to our homes in Mississippi. We were halted at Danville, Va., and informed that a division of yankee cavalry, under General Kirkpatrick, were near Burkesville Junction trying to make a circuit of Lee's army, and were destroying much of our supplies. They were tearing up the railroads and threatening great disaster to our already greatly impoverished men. Danville, being one of our chief supply depots, was a point of great importance. It was understood that the enemy would aitempt the capture of Danville, and if successful, then Greensboro, N. C., Raleigh, Goldsboro and possibly Wilmington. They were well mounted and equipped for this bold raid, and were pursued by Gen. W. H. F. Lee's division of cavalry, which was poorly mounted, and of course outdistanced by the enemy. Calls were made for volunteers from soldiers cut off at Danville to go to Staunton River to assist a company of 125 disabled soldiers, working in the arsenal at Danville, and a battalion of 350 Virginia State troops, old men and boys, armed with shotguns, squirrel rifles, etc., to defend the bridge and frustrate the plan of the invaders. I was among the fifty nine soldiers that cheerfully agreed to go under Lieutenant Colonel Jackson, of North Carolina, who was then suffering from a wound in his leg. Colonel Jackson assumed command of the little army of defense, and made a speech to the militia, telling them of the importance of defending the bridge, etc., and very wisely removing all means of retreat to the other side of the river (several batteaus), hastily throwing up earthworks on side of approach, each wing resting on the river, forming a semicircle. We also had two cannons, old howitzers, with a few trained artillerymen to work them, on opposite side. Our preparations were very hastily made, for the enemy soon made their approach known by the cloud of dust in the distance. Soon they opened up with their field guns, trying to burn the bridge and dislodge or frighten the Virginia militia, as they termed us. The shells striking the thin roof of the bridge made a fearful racket, scaring some of the small boys into outbursts of weeping. They then dismounted, deployed a strong skirmish line, supported by several regiments, that seemed eager for the fray. We reserved our fire until in close musket range, and then poured volley after volley, repulsing their first attack with ease. This greatly encouraged some of the militia, who had refused to fight. The enemy soon rallied again, and with reinforced numbers charged with redoubled zeal, only to meet defeat at the hands of our little Spartan band. When they heard the old rebel yell given by us their efforts were less vigorous.

n the meantime General Lee had hurried forward with his poor, jaded horses, and we soon heard his guns firing on their rear guard, and we felt assured that we had won, and had saved the Confederacy millions of dollars worth of supplies and ordnance that we could ill afford to lose. The enemy soon withdrew, and were hard pressed by Lee's cavalry, forcing them to retreat toward Petersburg, directly in the rear of General Lee's main army, when Wilcox's splendid division of infantry attempted to intercept them, but Gray's regiment of Pennsylvania " Bucktails" actually led and charged through our lines, thus saving a large part of this now thoroughly disorganized command. The result of our fight was eighty five Federals killed, wounded and captured. We had three men killed and seven wounded. A member of the Thirteenth Mississippi Infantry was my companion, and was badly wounded by a yankee Lieutenant, who shot him twice at close range with a pistol. I left him in the hospital at Danville and have never heard from him since. The next few days the woods were full of negroes who had attempted to escape with the enemy but were foiled by their defeat, and were anxious to return to their old homes.

This is a brief account of one of the most hotly contested little battles I ever participated in, and I was in most all the battles fought by the Army of Northern Virginia. Yet there has been no mention made of it by any historian.

VICISITUDES OF A PRIVATE SOLDIER.

J. W. Johnson, Toone, Tenn., writes: I give you a short history of my soldier life. I was raised in Hardeman County, Tenn., went to Texas in '59, and was there when the racket commenced between the States. I volunteered in the Fourth Texas Cavalry, served seven months, when we were dismounted. Was at Corinth under Generals Van Dorn and Price, thence to Tupelo, thence to Chattanooga, and from there into Kentucky under General Kirby Smith. With 6,000 men he whipped Bull Nelson at Richmond with 18,000 men. Out of thirty cannon we got twenty nine" of them, only leaving him one to salute his friends with when he got to Cincinnati, where we stopped running him. I fought at Perryville, was captured and paroled. I then came down here where I was raised. After awhile General Forrest came along, and I went with him for a spell, until the report got circulated in camps that he was going to send all old soldiers back to their old commands at twenty five dollars per head. I told the boys that I was not for sale, and so one of the darkest rainy nights I ever saw a lot of us ran away, and going down a long red hill south of Jackson. Tenn., one fellow's nag fell down and swapped ends. He got up, felt about for his horse, and got hold.of his tail. He said, "Boys, my mare has broke her neck," and it was true. I then went back to the Tennessee Army at Dalton, Ga., and on to Atlanta. Then around Sherman and on to Nashville by way of Franklin. I was in General French's Division, Stewart's Corps, after General Polk was killed. That occurred June 14, '64. We did not stay at Nashville, we left there and went south between Nashville and the Tennessee River. On the 25th day of December I gave a fellow $15 for a plug and a half of tobacco We crossed the Tennessee River and went into Mississippi, and thence to Mobile, Ala. I was in seige there for two weeks. We left there for Meridian, Miss., and there we blowed the hounds off.

John S. Pierson, New York: "Please find inclosed my subscription for 1894. I make it one dollar, being more convenient to send, and because I think the magazine is worth it."

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