A SOLILOQUY—(NOT HAMLET'S.)

"O, ever thus from childhood's hourI've seen my fondest hopes decay."

After a week's march my feet grew very sore and as I limped through Harrisonburg, a sweet-faced Virginia matron, with music in her voice and the light of heaven in her eye, beckoned to me from the window where she was sitting and gave me a nice pair of woollen socks. Passing through Newtown, Middletown, Kernstown and a number of other towns in a section made famous afterwards by Jackson's Valley Campaign, we reached Winchester Dec. 8, 1861. A few days later a supply of blankets contributed by the good ladies of Augusta, was received by the Oglethorpes. One of the contributors had no blankets, and in lieu of them, donated a handsome crumb-cloth, which like Joseph's coat, was of many colors, red and green being the prevailing tints. In the distribution this fell to Elmore Dunbar, the wag of the Company. Not needing it as a blanket he took it to a tailor in Winchester, had it transformed into a full suit, cap, coat and pants, and donning it had an innumerable company of gamins, white and black, following in his wake all over the town.

He and Harrison Foster were messmates. There was no discount on either of them as soldiers. Enlisting at the first call to arms, they were always among the firstto toe the line at every beat of the longroll and in the closing months of the war, when hope of success had well nigh passed and so many were dropping by the wayside, they held out bravely and manfully to the end. But as cooks they were not a brilliant success. One evening Harrison had gathered a few brush to make a fire, when he called on Dunbar to assist in his preparations for the evening meal, an appeal, to which the latter failed to respond. "Well," said Harrison, "if you don't help, I'll swear I won't cook any supper." "All right," said Dunbar, "My supper's cooked," and fishing out of his coattail pocket an antiquated biscuit of uncertain age, he began to nibble. "Well," said Harrison, "I won't build any fire. You'll have to freeze," and Dunbar gently drew from his haversack an old-fashioned silk beaver hat, that he had worn in the march up the valley and quietly placed it on the fire as his contribution to the evening's comfort.

Among the original members enlisting with the Oglethorpes, was one H— H—, who, in civil life, was so scrupulously careful with his dress that in these latter days he would have passed a creditable examination as a dude. Camp life is not specially conducive to personal neatness and eight month's service had left to him on this line only the memory of better days. Returning from Winchester one night in a condition not promotive ofmental equilibrium, he failed to find his tent and spent the night around the camp fire. He awoke next morning with his head in a camp kettle and his clothing soiled and blackened by contact with the cooking utensils, that had been his only bed-fellows. Running his hand through his matted locks and surveying his discolored uniform he was overheard to indulge in the following soliloquy: "Is this the gay and fascinating H— H—, that once perambulated the streets of Augusta in faultless attire? When I think of what I am and what I used to was, I feel myself blamed badly treated without sufficient cause."

On a Saturday afternoon in my boyhood days, in company with a schoolmate, I was rambling through the woods in the enjoyment of the hebdomadal relief from the restraints of the school room and the unpalatable mysteries of the three R's taught with a hickory attachment. Reaching a country bathinghouse half-filled with water and used by a neighboring colored Baptist church for baptismal purposes, we proceeded to draw off the water in order to catch the tadpoles that were enjoying their otium cum dignitate on its mud-lined bottom. On the next day the preacher and congregation assembled at the place to administer the rite of baptism to a number of applicants for membership. Owing to our tadpole hunt of the preceding day, they found that unlike theplace mentioned in the Scriptures, there was not "much water there," and they were compelled to defer the ceremony to a more convenient season. In dismissing the congregation the colored brother took occasion to remark that "We are liable, brethren, to disappintments in this life." On Christmas day in '61, in our camp, near Winchester, the mess to which the writer belonged found sad occasion to verify the truth if not the orthography of our dusky brother's observation. With a laudable desire to celebrate the day in appropriate style we had arranged with a colored caterer to supply our mess table with the proverbial turkey and such other adjuncts as the depleted condition of our financial bureau would permit. The day dawned and in the early morning hours our appetites for the coming feast were whetted by an eggnog kindly furnished the entire company by Lieut. J. V. H. Allen. The Christmas sun passed its meridian and traveled on toward its setting with no Joshua to stay its course. The appointed dinner hour came, as all appointed times do, but the proverbial turkey came not, with adjuncts or without. With our gastronomic hopes knocked finally into pi, but not mince pie, we sat down at last to our hardtack and bacon, lamenting in our hearts the uncertainty of "aught that wades, or soars, or shines beneath the stars." Whether the roost, from which our caterer expected to supply our larder was too well guarded on the preceding night, or whether the rating given our mess by the commercial agencies was unsatisfactoryhas remained through all these years an unsolved problem.

After our arrival in Winchester the "grape vine" service was again brought into requisition and rumors were current that we were going into winter quarters. But this was not "Stonewall Jackson's Way." His headquarters were in Winchester. Bath and Romney, in his department, were occupied by Federal troops and he determined to oust them. On Jan. 1, '62, our division, with Ashby's cavalry, began the march to Bath. It was a bright, warm day, with a touch of spring in the air. On the evening of the 3rd it began to snow and for thirty-one days the sun did not show his face again. If any reader of these memories should be disposed to question the accuracy of this statement, I can only say that it is so written in the chronicles of the First Georgia Regiment as recorded in my journal for the month named. That evening the wagons failed to reach our camp and our supper was confined to a single course—parched corn. Not relishing a repetition of the menu for breakfast, I dropped out of the ranks soon after the march began and tramping across the freshly fallen snow to a residence not far from the roadside, I found a trio of pretty Virginia girls engineering the first cooking stove I had ever seen. Reared in a country home and accustomed to rely for my daily bread on the culinary skill ofold "Aunt Hannah," the presiding genius of an old-fashioned kitchen fire place six feet wide, where, with the tact born of long experience, she piled the ruddy coals on the biscuit oven lid, or fried in a skillet the home-made sausage and spare rib with home made lard, or broiled on a gridiron the juicy beefsteak, or piled the burning "chunks" under the mammoth kettle that hung from the crane, while from its cavernous depths the air was laden with the aroma of ham and cabbage, this innovation on old-time methods was something of a revelation. But its novelty did not diminish the relish with which I hid away in my empty anatomy the steaming pan cakes dished out by fair and shapely hands to a squad of hungry soldier, one of whom, as Bill Arp would say, I was glad to be which.

On the morning of Jan. 4th we were halted in front of Bath, while a portion of the division was deployed on the left of the road for an attack upon the enemy. As the line of battle advanced through the snow, over a mountain ridge, and in plain view of us, Capt. Sam Crump, who had seen service in Mexico, said: "Well, boys, the ball will open now in fifteen minutes." I was only a stripling boy, with but limited experience as a soldier, and I remember with what reverent respect and implicit faith I received the utterance. But the ball did not open. The Federals retired without resistance to Hancock, Md., six miles away, and we hurried forward in pursuit. Reaching the hills overlooking the Potomacand the town after dark, we were standing in the road awaiting orders when a sudden flash illuminated the heavens and the regiment sank as one man into the snow. We thought we had struck a masked battery, but it was our own guns throwing grape shot into the woods in front. After standing an hour or two in the snow without fire we bivouacked and I slept, or tried to sleep, on three rails with their ends resting on a stump. We had built a fire of rails, a favorite army fuel in those days. I do not remember from what species of timber they were made, but I do recall the fact that it was a popping variety when subjected to heat. All through the night our sleep was disturbed by the necessity of rising at frequent intervals to extinguish our burning blankets, and one man had his cap nearly burned from his head before it awoke him.

Next morning Turner Ashby went over under flag of truce to demand the surrender of the town. During his absence on this mission it was rumored that he had been held as a prisoner and his cavalry were preparing to storm the town to secure his release. The report proved a fake and he returned, bringing Gen. Lander's refusal to comply. An artillery duel ensued. The Federal guns had to be elevated to reach our position and their balls striking the frozen ground would rebound. Some of the boys, who had played "town ball" at school would pretend to catch them, and would sing out: "Caught him out," when another would reply: "Don't count, 'twassecond bounce." It seemed more like a frolic than a fight. That night I laid aside my shoes and found them next morning filled with snow, while my blanket was covered with an inch or two of the same white mantle. Water was scarce and I tried to secure enough for a cup of coffee by melting snow in a tin cup, but found it a tedious process.

On the morning of the 7th the force was withdrawn to operate against Romney. The weather at this time recalls an old rhyme learned in my boyhood, which fits the case better than any description I could give and which runs thus,

"First she blew,Then she snew,And then she thew,And then she friz."

The roads were as slick as glass. The horses had to be rough-shod and the wheels rough-locked with chains to cut the frozen sleet and snow in descending the hills, and even with these precautions the horses would fall and be dragged to the bottom of the descent before a halt could be made. Twelve horses would be hitched to a single piece of artillery and details were made from each company to push the wagons up the hills. To men not inured to such hardships the experience was a pretty rough one and the criticisms of the winter campaign made by some of them would not look well in a Sunday school book.Osborne Stone's Presbyterian training would not allow him to use any cuss words, but I remember that his "dog-on-its" were frequent and emphatic. On January 8 we reached the "Cross Roads," and those who were pronounced by the surgeons unfit for further winter service were returned to Winchester. With them went the writer, to worry for four weeks with typhoid fever, while the command went on to Romney. Of the Romney trip I can not speak from personal knowledge, but from the accounts given by those who can, it was a repetition of the return from Hancock with its hardships, perhaps intensified.

Jackson accomplished his purpose, to drive the enemy from his department, though at the expense of a good deal of exposure and suffering to his men.

As hard as the service was, I am glad to have had the opportunity of sharing it with such a man as Turner Ashby. He was then a colonel of cavalry. Mounted on his milk white steed, with the form of an athlete; coal black hair, a silky brown beard reaching nearly to his waist and a velvety, steel-grey eye, he was, in soul as well as body, an ideal cavalier. His command embraced some of the best blood of Virginia and he and they were fit types of the Old South, worthy representatives of a civilization, that in culture, courtesy and courage, inhonor and in honesty, the past had never equalled and the future will never repeat.

Jackson had not then developed the military genius that afterwards rendered him so famous. The campaign furnished but little field for generalship, but it gave evidence of one trait in his character—to halt at no obstacle in the accomplishment of a purpose to benefit the cause for which he fought. In personal appearance and bearing he and Ashby differed widely. Without grace as a rider, and indifferently mounted, there was nothing in his appearance to indicate or foreshadow the height to which he afterwards attained. And yet I can but cherish with pride the recollection that in this campaign I had the privilege of serving under one, who in the blood-stained years that followed "went down to a soldier's grave with the love of the whole world, and the name of Stonewall Jackson."

In this connection my heart prompts me to pay its earnest tribute to one, whose memory the sketch above recalls. Dear old Aunt Hannah. How her name brings back to my heart and life today the glamour of the old, old days, that will never come again—days when to me a barefoot boy, life seemed a long and happy holiday. I can see her now, her head crowned with a checkered handkerchief, her arms bared to the elbows, her spectacles set primly on her nose, while from her kindlyeyes there shone the light of a pure white soul within. She was only an humble slave, and yet her love for me was scarcely less than that my father and mother bore me and when on a summer's day in '61 my brother and myself left the old homestead to take our humble places under a new born flag, there was not a dry eye on the whole plantation and old Aunt Hannah wept in grief as pure and deep as if the clods were falling on an only child.

Long years have come and gone since she was laid away in the narrow house appointed for all the living. No marble headstone marks the spot, yet I am sure the humble mound that lies above her sleeping dust, covers a heart as honest and as faithful, as patient and as gentle, as kindly and as true as any that rest beneath the proudest monument that art could fashion, or affection buy. She reared a large family of sons and daughters, Rev. Charles T. Walker, the "Black Spurgeon," among them, transmitting to them all a character for honesty and virtue marked even in those, the better days of the republic.

Wisely or otherwisely, in the order of Providence, or in the order of Napoleon's "heavier battalions," we have in this good year of our Lord not only a New South, but a new type of Aunt Hannah. The old is, I fear, a lost Pleiad, whose light will shine no more on land, or sea, or sky.

On a page of the writer's scrap book, underneath a roll of the Oglethorpes and in friendly contact with the parole granted me at Johnston's surrender, is a slip of paper pocket-worn, and yellow with age, which reads as follows: "Winchester, Va., Mar. 1, 1862. Pass W. A. Clark and brother today on Valley Road. By order Maj. Gen. T. J. Jackson. M. M. Sibert, Captain and Provost Marshall." Thereby hangs the following tale: On my return to Winchester, after the tramp to Hancock, I had secured lodgings at the home of a Mrs. Polk, where for nearly four weeks, I lay with my pulses throbbing with fever. From that sick bed two incidents come back vividly today over the waste of years that have intervened. My hostess, whose kindness I shall never forget, had a daughter, Nellie, who, as a rustic friend of mine would say, was something of a "musicianer." Patriotic songs were all the rage and one evening as I lay on my bed restless from fever and trying to sleep, she began in the parlor below to sing the "Bonnie Blue Flag." The copy used had, I think, eleven verses, and in my nervous condition the entertainment seemed endless. Just as I had congratulated myself on its conclusion, a young gentleman called and insisted on a repetition of the program with his vocal accompaniment, and she was kind enough to comply, without skipping a verse. I can not recall a musical entertainment that my condition forced me toappreciate less though cheerfully acquitting her of any malice aforethought in the matter.

As I lay on my bed during all those weeks and looked on the white-mantled hills that environed the town I remember distinctly how intensely my parched lips craved the cooling touch of the pure white snow. But like Tantalus, I was forced day after day to gaze on a luxury I could not enjoy, for the medical science of that day said nay. Tempora mutantur, and doctors change with them.

Before I had recovered sufficiently to leave my bed Stonewall Jackson decided to evacuate Winchester and ordered all the convalescent sick to be moved. Having no desire to complete my recovery in a Federal prison my brother secured the pass above referred to and seats in the hack to Strasburg. There were nine passengers and among them was Belle Boyd, the Confederate Spy. Her home was in Martinsburg and her father a Major in the Confederate army. Her mother had forced her to leave home on the approach of the Federal army. On its first visit to Martinsburg she had remained there. Having a soldier friend in the hospital and uncertain as to the treatment he would receive from the enemy, she had taken two of her father's servants to the hospital with a stretcher, had him placed upon it and walked by his side through the streets to her home with a loaded pistol in her hand to protect him from insult or injury at their hands. A few days later a Federal soldier attempted toplace a Union flag over the door of her home and she persuaded him to desist by the use of a leaden argument from her pistol. Another attempt to remove a Confederate flag that waved over the mantel in her parlor met with a similar counter-irritant, and she was molested no further. Fortunately or unfortunately as the case may be, neither of her shots hit their mark. In view of these facts her mother thought it prudent to send her away before the Union forces occupied the town again, and she was en route to the home of a relative in Front Royal. To protect myself from the chilly air during the stage ride I was wearing a woollen visor knitted for my brother by Miss Lucy Meredith, of Winchester, and covering my head and throat, leaving only my eyes exposed. With a woman's instinct she saw that I was too weak to sit up and arranged to give me possession of an entire seat, improvised a pillow of a red scarf she was wearing on her shoulders and in every way possible contributed to my ease and comfort. On reaching Strasburg she aided my brother in getting me into the hotel, arranged a lounge in the parlor for me, brought my supper and entertained me during the meal, refusing to eat anything herself until I had finished. After supper she sat by me and talked to me for an hour, and then, thinking I was weary, she moved the lamp in a corner of the room shading it from my eyes with her scarf, so that I might sleep. After all these years my memory retains some incidents of that conversation. I remember that she toldme something of her child life; that when a little girl she had been a member of Dave Strother's party in his tour through Virginia, which he described so charmingly in the early numbers of Harper's Magazine over the nom de plume of "Porte Crayon;" that Gen. Lander, who commanded the Federal troops, that we had driven from Bath into Maryland, was an old sweetheart of hers; that Dave Strother was a member of his staff, and she intended to cut his acquaintance.

I remember that she said further that she had been hurt by a remark made to her that day by a soldier about the seeming boldness of Virginia girls; that soldiers mistook kindness and the expression of a desire to serve them for boldness; that she intended coming to Georgia after the war to get married. She left on the next train for her destination, and I saw her no more. She had impressed me as one of kindest and gentlest of women and yet a year or two later she forded the Potomac alone in a storm at midnight to carry important information to her brother in Stuart's cavalry. Perhaps with woman as well as man

"The bravest are the tenderest,The loving are the daring."

If necessity had required it I believe she would have led the charge of Pickett's Division at Gettysburg without a tremor.

In the years that followed she became a noted spy,going into the Federal lines and securing information, which she sent or carried to the Confederate army. She was finally arrested and sent to Washington as a prisoner. It was reported that she married the Federal officer, to whose oversight she had been entrusted and that he joined the Confederate army. Some of her methods as a spy subjected her to harsh and hostile criticism, but in grateful memory of her kindness to one, who was only a private soldier, without rank or social prestige, one who had no claim upon her service save that in an humble way he had tried to serve the cause she loved and in that service had grown sick and helpless, her name has never passed my lips except in tones of fervent gratitude and reverent respect.

As my service as a soldier on Virginia soil was now about to end and as that service carried me afterwards into six other states of the Confederacy, in four of them lengthening into months or years, it may not be amiss to say in this connection that judged by that experience, Virginia stood above them all in kindly feeling and hospitable treatment to the Confederate soldier. Furnishing to the army perhaps a larger quota of her sons than any other State, her territory tracked by the tread of hostile armies for four bloody years, her homes destroyed and her fields laid waste, her generous kindness and her active sympathy for the suffering soldier never wavered to the end.

While the South as a whole gave to the world the highest type of civilization it had ever known, Virginia, as I believe, stood at its head, the capstone in the fairest structure the sun has gilded since the morning stars sang together, and garlanding its summit like a glistening coronal, bright with the light of immortality stands the name and fame of Robert Edward Lee.

The 1st Ga. Regiment was the only infantry organization from this State mustered out at the expiration of its first year's service. The Conscript Act became effective in the spring of '62, and succeeding regiments, whose terms expired later were under its provision retained in the service. On the return of the command from Romney the 1st Ga. was ordered to Tennessee. Going by rail to Lynchburg, a railroad accident occasioned some delay at that point and as their time would have expired in a few days they were sent to Augusta to be mustered out.

My brother, knowing that I would not be strong enough to rejoin the command before its term of service ended, decided to take me directly home. And so by stage and rail, with tiresome delays at every junction, in the deepening twilight of a fair spring day, weak and weary, I came in sight of the old homestead once more. Over the joy and gladness of such a meeting after an absence, every day of which had seemed to those I hadleft behind, an age of agony and dread, it is meet that the mantle of silence should fall. The halo that came to fathers and mothers hearts in those old days when their "boys" came home from the war, seemed like a breath from Heaven. It was sacred then and to me it is sacred still. Loving lips, that gave me glad welcome that spring day have long been cold and silent, and eyes that shone through misty tears are dim in death. Some time in the coming months or years, I know not when, and yet in God's good time, in weakness and in weariness at even-tide on some spring day again, it may be, I shall, I trust, go "home again;" not to the old homestead hallowed as it is by a mother's love and a father's prayers, and yet to find hard by the River of Life from lips long silent, a welcome just as loving in "a city, whose builder and maker is God."

Co. D, 1st Ba. Regt.

Capt. J. O. Clarke, promoted Lieut. Col. 1st Ga. Reg.Capt. Horton B. Adams.1st Lieut. J. V. H. Allen.2d Lieut. Geo. W. Crane.3d Lieut. S. B. Simmons.1st Serg. A. J. Setze.2d Serg. W. S. Holmes.3d Serg. S. C. Foreman.4th Serg. L. A. Picquet.1st Corp. O. M. Stone.2d Corp. Jesse W. Rankin.3d Corp. Chas H. Roberts.4th Corp. Burt O. Miller.

Alfred M. Averill.Dillard Adams.A. E. Andrews.A. W. Bailey.F. A. Beall.A. W. Blanchard.R. M. Booker.Jno. M. Bunch.Thos. Burgess.Milton A. Brown.A. J. Burroughs.Wm. Bryson.Chas. Catlin.H. A. Cherry.H. B. Clark.F. W. Clark.Wm. H. Clark.Walter A. Clark.W. J. Cloyd.Jno. R Coffin.E. F. Clayton.C. S. Crag.Wm. Craig.J. B. Crumpton.Wilberforce Daniel.Ed. Darby.Joseph T. Derry.J. J. Doughty.C. W. Doughty.W. R. Doyle.B. B. Doyle.Jno. P. Duncan.S. H. Dye.E. A. Dunbar.Geo. W. Evans.Robert C. Eve.Sterling C. Eve.L. F. Flming.H. Clay Foster.W. Harrison Foster.John P. Foster.Willie Goodrich.J. P. Goodrich.C. M. Goodwin.W. A. Griffin.A. G. Hall.E. H. Hall.Wm. Haight.J. J. Harrell.Frank M. Hight.Jno. C. Hill.Harry Hughes.Jno. T. Hungerford.V. G. Hitt.H. B. Jackson.W. F. Jackson.A. M. Jackson.Whit G. Johnson.W. H. Jones.W. E. Jones.G. A. Jones.Matt Kean.W. H. Kennedy.W. T. Lamar.Jas. Lamar.Geo. G. Leonhardt.D. W. Little.P. E. Love.A. D. Marshall.C. O. Marshall.Geo. W. McLaughlin.C. E. McCarthy.J. T. McGran.D. W. Mongin.R. B. Morris.W. B. Morris.Z. B. Morris.W. J. Miller.Josiah Miller.Geo. D. Mosher.M. C. Murphey.W. E. Peay.A. Pilcher.J. T. Newberry.F. M. Pope.Geo. P. Pournelle.W. P. Ramsey.J. T. Ratcriff.J. H. Revill.A. J. Rhodes.J. A. Rhodes.J. P. Roberts.J. C. Roebuck.W. A. Roll.J. W. Rigsby.S. H. Sheppard.L. W. Shed.L. W. Stroud.Fred W. Stoy.Jno. W. Stoy.Alonzo Smith.Miles Turpin.Thomas J. Tutt.J. E. Thomas.Geo. J. Verdery.R. W. Verdery.G. F. Wing.B. H. Watkins.C. D. Wakins.Jas. E. Wilson.Jas. D. Wilson.Walter A. Wiley.Wm. T. Williams.W. T. Winn.Wm. Whiting.

On May 1, 1862, the Oglethorpes were re-organized at Camp Jackson, on the Carnes Road, near Augusta, Ga., as an artillery company under Capt. J. V. H. Allen. Three other companies from the 1st Ga. Regiment, and the "DeKalb Rifles" from Stone Mountain, joined us and the 12th Ga. Battalion was formed, with Major Henry D. Capers as commander. We remained at this camp drilling for two months, and our parade ground became a favorite afternoon resort for the young ladies of Augusta.

Among the fair visitors, who honored us by their presence, were the Misses Long, two pretty and attractive girls, who were guests at the Savage Place, near our quarters. Miles Turpin, one of the company wits, fell a victim to the charms of the younger one, who in physical make-up was rather petite. When his attack had reached the acute stage, he was being joked about it one day and gave vent to his feelings in the following revised version of Goldsmith's familiar lines:

I want but little here below,But want "that little Long."

Miles was not the only wit in the Company. Every branch in Phil Schley's family tree must have shed puns as an ordinary tree sheds leaves when touched by the breath of winter. Lon Fleming was crossing the grounds at Camp Jackson one day with a chair slung over his left shoulder, when he was hailed by Phil. "Lon, you are most cheerful man I've seen today." "Yes," said Lon, "over the left." Lest some of my readers may fail to see the point, it may be prudent to say that when Phil and I were boys, "chair" in the piney woods was pronounced "cheer." This was not one of Phil's best nor, perhaps, one of his worst. It would probably grade about "strict low middling." Aside from this hereditary punning propensity, from which my old comrade has reasonably recovered, I am glad to recall his unfailing good humor and his readiness to meet the dangers and hardships of the service bravely and without a murmur.

On July 4th, '62, Miss Pinkie Evans, of Augusta, presented to the battalion a beautiful silk battle flag made, it was said, from her mother's wedding robe. Her patriotic address in making the presentation was responded to by Maj. Capers, who accepted the colors for the battalion.

As the Oglethorpes were transferred from the battalion in the fall of 1862, we had no opportunity of fighting under their banner save at the skirmish at Huntsville, Tennessee. It was afterwards bravely borne on many a bloody battlefield, under Evans and Gordon in Maryland and Virginia. Seven color-bearers were shot down under its silken folds. During the second heavy bombardment of Fort Sumter, lasting from Oct. 26 to Dec. 6, 1863, the 12th Ga. Battalion formed a part of its garrison. On Oct. 31st the flag of the fort was shot down and was replaced by Serg. Graham, Will Hitt and Bob Swain, of Augusta, then serving with the 12th Ga. Batt. It was shot down again on the same day and its staff so badly shattered that it could not be hoisted. The same brave men went up on the parapet, amid the storm of solid shot and shell and raised their own 12th Ga. flag. When the Confederate line was broken at Cedar Creek, Serg. Hopps of Crump's company, bore this flag, and disdaining to fly, he held his ground alone, waving his colors defiantly at the advancing line of blue until he was killed. Afred Wallen, of the same company, a beardless boy, but a brave one, saw him fall and running back at the risk of his own life, tore the flag from its staff and brought it in safety to his command. It is said these colors were not surrendered at Appomatox, but were returned to their fair donor unstained save by the blood of the gallant Baker and King and Stallings and Hopps, who in the shock of battle had gone down to death under their silken folds.

Buell was threatening Chattanooga, and Maj. Capers was ordered to report with his battalion to Gen. McCown at that point. Leaving Augusta July 5th in two special trains, we were detained at Ringgold, Ga., for a day or two by a collision with a freight train, which resulted in the death of ten or twelve men and fifteen or twenty horses, and in injuries more or less serious to a larger number. Reaching Chattanooga July 8, we remained there ten days and were then transferred by N. & C. R. R. to a point near Shell Mound, Ala. Picketing here for two weeks in front of Buell's army we returned to Chattanooga Aug. 1, and on the next day left for Knoxville with the intention, I suppose, of accompanying Kirby Smith's army into Kentucky. Two days at Knoxville and we are off for Clinton. En route a courier brings information that the enemy has attacked our forces at Tazewell, twenty miles away, and we are ordered to hurry forward to reinforce Gen. Stevenson at that point. An hour later another dispatch is received that the attack has been repulsed and we are sidetracked at Clinton to aid in the capture or dispersion of the 7th Tenn. Federal regiment, then occupying a fortified camp near Huntsville, Tenn.

How strangely human events sometimes shape themselves without apparent effort to control them. Sittingin my home some weeks ago in the dreamy haze of an October Sunday afternoon, there chanced to fall under my eye in the editorial column of a Sunday school paper the statement that Col. Alexander Hogeland of Louisville, Ky., had visited Nashville, Tenn., in the interest of the "Curfew Law." Other items in the column caused a momentary disturbance of my brain cells, then passed away to be recalled no more. But this one lingered in my memory and would not down, for thereby hangs the following tale:

The expedition against the Federal force at Huntsville was commanded by Col. Gracie, of Alabama, and consisted of the 12th Ga. Battalion, a portion of an Alabama regiment, and a few cavalry. Leaving Clinton at 4 p. m., Aug. 12, we camped near Jacksonboro on the night of the 13th and on the morning of the 14th started for Huntsville by a rough mountain path that crossed a spur of the Cumberland range. After a toilsome tramp we halted at 9 p. m. and after an hour's rest were again on the march. The path is narrow and the overarching trees shut out every ray of starlight. Groping along in the dark we follow the tramp of the feet in front, reaching out occasionally to touch the file just ahead, lest our ears have deceived us. Our pathway passes on the edge of a precipitous bluff and my brother in Crump's company loses his footing and topples over it. The fall fails to disable him, but he loses his hat and in the darkness is unable to recover it. Hatless he rejoins the commandand the procession moves on. Just before daylight we halt for another rest. At 5 a. m. we resume the march and in the early morning reach the vicinity of the Federal camp. Deploying into line of battle we advance through a belt of woodland and entering a cornfield beyond, our right is fired upon by the Federal pickets. As we drive them in a scattering fire is kept up until we come in sight of their camp and near it a rude log fort built upon the crest of a tall hill, over whose precipitous slope the forest trees have been felled, making an almost impassable abattis. While arrangements are being made for an attack upon the fort, Tom Tutt and the writer, who are both on the color guard, see a thin line four or five hundred yards to our right, near a church, and whom we take to be the pickets, who had been resisting our advance. Tom, whose rule is to shoot at everything in sight, selects his man and fires and the writer follows suit. We load and fire again. After a few rounds I become convinced that it is a portion of Capt. Crump's company, which had been detached and sent to the right and in which I have two brothers. As Tom raises his gun again I said, "Hold on, Tom, you are shooting at your own company." He made no reply and continued firing until the order to advance was given. A deep gully lay partially in our front and as its passage caused some confusion in the ranks, we halted to reform the line. Crump's company was hurrying forward to join us and before they had reached their position in line Col.Gracie gave the command, "Charge." From underneath the head logs of the fort the Belgian rifles were barking at us and the heavy balls they carried whistled by us like young shells. We were waiting for Crump, and Gracie, ignorant of the cause of the delay, shouted: "What is the matter with the 12th Ga. Battalion?" Just then a lone cavalryman passed the line on foot and with drawn sabre made his way towards the fort with the evident intention of capturing the whole business himself. Crump's company came up at a "double quick" and the whole line moved forward with a yell. Sergeant Harwell, our color-bearer, had never been under fire and the boys, uncertain as to his grit, had asked Tom Tutt, who did not know what fear meant, to take the colors when the charge began. Tom made the effort to seize them, but Harwell, a tall, gaunt man, and brother of two honored Methodist preachers, declined to give them up and bore them forward bravely. As we advanced the fire from the fort suddenly ceased and we thought they were waiting to see the whites of our eyes. Reaching the steep ascent we climbed up over logs and brush until the fort was gained. Lieut. Joe Taliaferro, of Augusta, was the first to enter, and with his sword cut down the floating flag. The fort was empty—not a Yankee to be seen. Under cover of the thick forest growth in their rear they had hid to other haunts, under the idea, perhaps, that

"He who fights and runs away,Will live to fight another day."

Their camp, located just below the fort gave ample evidence of their hasty exit. Our attack was something of a "surprise party" and their unfinished morning meal was boiling, baking and frying on the camp fires. We were unexpected and uninvited guests and yet our reception was warm, although unfriendly. Our all-night tramp enabled us to do full justice to the breakfast they had prepared, as well as the sugar cured hams and other supplies their commissary had kindly left for our use. We appropriated an ample outfit of blankets, canteens, haversacks, etc., and burned what we could not carry away.

The skirmish on our side, and probably on theirs was almost bloodless. W. W. Bussey, of the Oglethorpes, and Garyhan, of Crump's company, were slightly wounded. I recall no other casualty except the killing of a nice horse ridden by Col. Gracie.

And now what has all this to do with the item I read in a Sunday school paper? Simply this: Among the assets and effects secured that day by the writer from the officer's tent and administered upon without "Letter's Testamentary" was a pocket diary belonging to Capt. Alexander Hogeland, of the 10th Indiana Regt. On reading the paragraph referred to, the coincidence in names suggested the possibility that Col. Alexander Hogeland, of Louisville, Ky., "Father of the Curfew," might have been Capt. Alexander Hogeland, of the 10th Ind. Regt., whose property had been in my possession for thirty-sevenyears. To test the matter, I wrote Col. Hogeland and from his reply the following extract is taken: "Your deeply interesting favor of the 4th inst received and for the information it contains accept my hearty thanks. I am the identical person referred to in your letter. Was first lieutenant Co. D, 10th Indiana Regiment in the West Virginia campaign and afterwards Captain of Co. G. In May, '62, was made lieutenant-colonel of 7th East Tennessee Regiment, commanded by Col. Wm. Cliff, and stationed at Huntsville, Tenn., in August, '62. We lost everything on the occasion you refer to and this is the first information I have received as to the whereabouts of my effects. I am very glad to avail myself of your proffer to return my diary and enclose herewith necessary postage." Col. Hogeland's diary was duly returned to him and in acknowledging its receipt he took occasion to thank me for looking him up after all these years and assured me that he would endeavor to return that kindness by visiting Augusta in the early future and giving the citizens of this goodly city the benefit of the "Curfew Law." It will furnish additional evidence of the truthfulness of the opening statement in this sketch if the capture of a war diary nearly forty years ago, should result in the adoption of a "Curfew" ordinance in Augusta.

In illustration of the adage that "Every dog has his day," it may not be amiss to say that Col. Hogeland's escapade from Fort Cliff at the instance of four companies of the old First Georgia Regiment, was only partial compensation for the 100-mile run made by those self-same companies from Laurel Hill, Va., in '61, with Capt. Hogeland's regiment as one of the exciting causes.

On our return from Huntsville, Joe Derry and J. W. Lindsay, of the Oglethorpes, unable to keep pace with the command, straggled and were captured by "bush-whackers." Joe was exchanged a few days, later, Lindsay preferring to remain a prisoner. After a short stay at Clinton we moved up to Jacksboro and remained there until Oct. 9th, guarding Bragg's line of communications. Our service at this place was uneventful. Buell's army had retreated into Kentucky and there was nothing to disturb our "otium cum dignitate" save a moderate amount of picket duty and the one subject ever uppermost in the soldier's mind—"rations." The following incidents of our stay at this camp furnish some illustrations of this fact:

A continuous diet of salt bacon had made the boys ravenous for fresh meat and as war has no tendency to strengthen respect for property rights where a soldier's appetite is involved, they were not, as a rule, very scrupulous as to the methods adopted to procure a supply. The means most in use at the date referred to were known in camp parlance as "flip ups." As no encyclopedia of myacquaintance describes this mechanical contrivance and its specifications have never encumbered the records of the patent office, it may not be amiss to say that it consisted of a bent sapling, a slip noose with a trigger attachment and a bait of corn. The unsuspecting porker, tempted by the bait, sprang the trigger and the sapling freed from its confinement, sought to resume its normal position, while the shote caught in the noose and partially suspended in the air gave noisy notice that the game was up.

On one occasion the catch, by right of discovery or otherwise, fell to a mess, of which Parson H——, a minister of the Presbyterian persuasion, was a member. When dinner was served that day a dish of smoking pork chops was passed to the Parson, but he declined with the remark that his conscience did not allow him to eat stolen meat. As the meal progressed the fragrant odor from the dish struck his olfactories with increasingly tempting force and he finally passed up his tin plate and said: "I'll take a little of the gravy if you please." He had made a brave fight for principle and his final compromise was probably due to the fact that Paul's vow, "If meat make my brother to offend I will eat no flesh while the world standth," failed to include gravy in its inhibition. He may have been further influenced by the reflection that his refusal to indulge could not possibly restore the porker to life again. As Jim Wilson said,

"'Twas Greece (grease), but living Greece no more."

This incident recalls the fact that Jim and the writer had on this subject the same scruples as the Parson, and in order to place ourselves on the line of strongest resistance we entered into an agreement with each other binding ourselves to total abstinence from all meat of questionable origin until mutually released from the obligation. The compact was religiously observed until Hood's campaign in Tennessee in the winter of '64. Transportation was scarce and rations were scarcer. On one occasion two ears of corn were issued to each soldier. Some wag in the company, probably Elmore Dunbar, seeing that horse rations were being furnished sang out, "come and get your fodder." On another occasion beef was issued but no bread. We had neither lard to fry nor salt to season, but our digestive apparatus was not then fastidious as to condiments. It was unimportant whether it was taken "cum grano salis" or without, so the void was filled.

A fire was built of dried limbs from a brush pile and the beef placed in a shallow frying pan to stew, Frank Stone being the chef de cuisine. The mess sat around with anxious faces and whetted appetites. Finally one of them, in shifting his position, struck the end of a limb on which the pan was resting and dumped the whole business into the dirt and ashes. The catastrophe placed us rather than the beef in a stew and we went to bed supperless.

Under such conditions it is, perhaps, but natural thatthe case should be re-opened, a new trial granted and a verdict rendered to follow Paul's other injunction, "Whatsoever is set before you, eat, asking no questions for conscience sake."

I can not recall positively that either of us ever indulged even as to gravy, but I think I can say that neither of us was particepts criminis in the act of impressment. If guilty, we were only accessories after the fact.

During our stay at Jacksboro the farmers in that section were making sorghum syrup, which most of them called "them molasses." Near one of our picket posts lived a Baptist minister named Lindsay, from whose better half we purchased vegetables and other edibles. On one occasion I was unable to make exact change and left owing her 12 1-2 cents in Confederate money. Two weeks later I was on picket again and paid her the balance due. She was so much surprised that a soldier should have the moral sense to recognize and meet such an obligation that she formed a very exalted estimate of my honesty and when I afterwards went to buy some of "them molasses" she requested her husband to take it from a barrel she had reserved for her own use "for," he said "she likes 'em powerful thick." I had occasion to regret her kindness, for it was so thick that it was with difficulty that I could get it either into or out of my canteen, and in view of her partiality I did not have the heartto suggest that a thinner grade would be preferred. She was a kind and motherly soul, and yet some of the soldiers would steal from her. To prevent or minimize their depredations she cooped a noisy rooster underneath her bedroom as a sort of watch dog to notify her of any midnight foragers. A few mornings afterwards she awoke to find, aside from other losses, that her feathered sentinel had been caught asleep upon his post by some soldier, who was chicken-mouthed, if he was not chicken-hearted.

Rations as one of the sinews of war, deserve something more than incidental mention in these memories and as no more favorable opportunity may occur, it may be as well to give them more extended notice in connection with the incident just related.

Confederate rations during the early years of the war were as I recollect them, not only fair in quality but ample in quantity. As evidence of this fact I remember that the boys were sometimes so indifferent when rations hour arrived that it was difficult to induce them to draw their allowance promptly. Charles Catlin was our company commissary and I can hear now his clear, sharp tones as they rang out on the frosty evening air among the Virginia mountains in '61, "Come up and get your beef. Are you going to keep a man standing out here in the cold all night?"

As the war progressed the resources of the Confederacy, limited to its own production by the cordon of hostile gunboats that girded its ports, became more and more heavily taxed and its larder grew leaner and leaner. But little wheat was raised in the Gulf States and few beeves except in Texas. We were reduced largely to meal and bacon rations, and the supply of these sometimes recalled the instructions in regard to loading a squirrel rifle given by its owner to a friend to whom he had loaned it: "Put in very little powder, if any." Cooking squads were detailed from each company and once a day the wagons would drive up and issue three small corn pones to each man. Some of the boys, whose hunger was chronic, would begin on theirs and never stop until the last pone had been eaten.

Bob Winter belonged to this class and eight or ten hours after his daily rations had disappeared Dick Morris would draw a pone or half a pone from his haversack and say, "Bob, here's some bread if you want it," and Bob would reply, "Dick, I don't want to take it if you need it," and Dick would answer, "Bob, I've told you a thousand times that I wouldn't give you anything that I wanted," and Bob would succumb and so would the bread.

When our changes of base were rapid the squads would cook up two or three days' rations and in hot weather the bread would mould and when broken open the fungus growth looked very much like cobweb. Some of the pones had also the appearance of slow convalescence from chill and fever. Under such conditions it could hardly be considered very palatable except upon the idea of a rustic friend of mine, who, in commending the virtues of India Cholagogue, was asked as to its palatability. "O," said he, "it's very palatable, but the meanest stuff to take you ever saw."

Most of the boys had left well-to-do homes to enter the service and while they bore privation and hunger without a murmur, there would sometimes come into their hard lives a craving for the good things they had left behind. Gathered about the camp-fire, cold and tired and hungry, they would discuss the dish that each liked best and their lips would grow tremulous as they thought of the day when hope would become realization. Joe Derry, I remember, could never be weaned away from the memory of his mother's nice mince pies and black-berry jam. I can see his eyes dance now as he magnified their merits. Bob Winter's ultimate thule in the gastronomic line was sliced potato pie, while Jim Thomas would never tire of singing the praises of 'possum baked with potatoes. Louis Picquet said to him one day, "Jim, if I ever get home again I am going to have one dinner of 'possum and 'taters if it kills me." But it was left to the epicurean taste of John Henry Casey to reach the acme of these unsatisfied longings when, recognizing the value of quantity as well as quality he declared that nothing less would satisfy him than "a chicken pie big enough to trot a horse and buggy around on."

But for extending this ration sketch to an irrational length I might have said something of the May Pop leaves that we cooked for "greens" in North Georgia, of the half hardened corn transformed into meal by means of an improvised grater prepared by driving nails through the side of a tin canteen, of the pork issued to us in Tennessee with the hair still on it, of the hog skins that we ate at Inka, Miss., and of many other such things, but they would probably fail to interest the reader as they did the actors in those far off days.

Our enlistment as artillery had so far proven a delusion and a snare. The Confederacy had no guns with which to equip us and we had found no opportunity to capture any. During our stay at Jacksboro Capt. Allen succeeded in securing from the War Department the transfer of the Oglethorpes to the 2nd South Carolina Artillery, then in service at Charleston. Oct. 9, '62, at 6 p. m. we fell into line, gave three cheers for our late companions in arms and as the setting sun crimsoned with its last rays the lofty summit of the Cumberland, we filed out of the village to the tune of

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