Daily union and American. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1865-1866, 1866-03-28
AN INTERESTING STORY OF THE
WAR.


story.
In the summer of 1859 Charles Geroul
became graduate Of college in the south
ern part of this State. He was the descend
ant Of an aristocratic family who lived il
Louisiana, and to be brief, he was then full
embodiment of the "ehivalry," just having
entered his majority While attending col
.age he had formed the acquaintance o
Clarl C., who attended a college fol
young ladies in this city, which acquaintance
ripened into attachment and love, and jus
before the breaking out OF the rebellion they
were married, and removed South. Miss g
was an orphan, possessed of considerable
property, which was held in trust by hel
uncle, Southern minister, who had raised
her from infancy, and personally superin-
tended her education. In addition to the
endowments of a collegiate education, she
was possessed of a strong character, border
ing almost on the masculine, but tempered
with a sweetness and mildness not often com
bined in the same person. She was at once
handsome and womanly.
Within a year after their marriage and
settlement in the South, came the fierce
wild blasts of war from Sumters parapet
and there was none more ready TO enter the
deadly fray than Charles Geroux. His po-
litical tutors were practical secessionists, and
he entered upon the war with fervor and
zeal to command the admiration of his
friends, and which secured him Majors
commission. His wife opposed his mad
scheme with all the power of woman's elo-
quence, but to no avail. She openly espoused
the cause of the Union, and steadfastly re-
fused to cooperate with her new friends and
neighbors. Notwithstanding her love for
the old flag, and open Unionism, her hus-
band loved her, and while he= husband was
at home the neighbors respected her. Geroux
invested all his ready property, which in
cluded his wife's fortune, in Confederate
bonds, placed them in her hands, gave her
kiss for a short farewell, assuring her that
the war would soon be over, and, marching
at the head of & victorious column of his
country's defenders, she would be proud to
welcome him.
After two years of service in the Confed-
crate army, ne was captured a prisoner, by
the victorious Sherman in his march to At
lanta, and sent to Camp Douglas.
This was good news to his wife and she
resolved to make her way North and rejoin
him in his prison home, and ifshe could not
secure his pardon, to at least stay near him.
Her Confederate bonds were worthless, and
she was penniless. She made her way to
the Mississippi river, and took passage in the
ill-fated steamer Sultdnd for the North. She
sold some jewelry for money sufficient to
carry her to Chicago. Arriving at Memphis,
her child was taken very i'll, and by the ad-
vice of the captain, she remained there to
i fha oh
twenty-four hours thereafter, the boiler of
the SultGnG exploded, and twelve hundred
lives were lost.
Geroux Jared i'll at ease in Camp Douglas,
and made many strategems to escape. He
finally succeeded in bribing a raw sentinel
to let him pass, and to avoid pursuit resort
to deception became necessary. A comrade
of his was on the point Of death. His mess
dressed the dead soldier in the Majors uni
form and conveyed him to the dead house,
and gave in his name as Major Charles Ge-
roux, Sd Louisiana Regiment G. S. A. The
next morning the body was taken away and
buried. and the rank, name, regiment and
place of burial were duly recorded in the
register of the Camp Douglas dead, by G. III.
Jordan, the undertaken for the Government,
at Chicago That night Geroux escaped.
His absence created no enquiry, as he was
reported dead.
For the purpose of avoiding public roads
and conveyances, he took horse from a pas
ture near Camp Douglas belonging to ]. L.
Hancock, formerly President of the Board
of Trade of Chicago, and by avoiding the
public roads as much as possible, reached
Momence the next day. His actions excited
suspicion, and he was arrested on suspicion
of having stolen the horse, and was lodged
in the Kankake jail. He was taken out
on writ of hd5eGs corpus, and no proof
being found to hold him he was discharged.
Coming thence to this city he obtained
situation in wholesale grocery house.
After the usual delays in passing letters
through the lines, he learned that his two
brothers were killed in the battle of the Will
derness, that his fathers estate had been con-
fscated to the United States Government,
and his father had voluntarily exiled him
self to Mexico. OF his wife and child, the
only information was that they had sought
to get North, and took passage on the Sui
tdnd, since which they had not been heard
Of, and no doubt remained that they had
perished His true position had been studi-
Ously concealed, and he avoided his former
Shortly after he received
this intelligence from the South, Sherman
started on his grand march from Atlanta,
and Grant marshaled his grand army before
Petersburg, aud the Confederate States army
vanished almost as a vision. During the
past summer Geroux returned to the South,
and was fully confirmed in the information
he had received about his family, and that
his real estate had also been confscated. He
gave his wife and child up as lost, and re-
turned to Cincinnati.
After his wife and child had remained in
Memphis and escaped the disaster of the
steamer sSultdnd, she started for Chi
,ago, and reachedECamp Douglas. Impa-
ieNt at any delay, she hastened there with
high to meet him who was
learer to her than life. The reader can
picture to himself the agony of this sad
wife. A stranger, destitute OF money, car
.ying in her arms weakly child, not yet
from a severe illness, and she
herself worn out with fatigue and anxiety,
when she learned that her husband was
lead. There was no doubt of his death
he register kept at Camp Douglas showed
t. and the grave was pointed out to her,
which bore this inscription upon a pine
,oard:
UNATnp CuApTEc rEpOTTy