Bellows Falls times. [volume] (Bellows Falls, Vt.) 1856-1965, 1866-06-22

An Interesting Story of the War.
Truth Stranger than Fiction.

mere IS HOW living III this city family, |
the history of which forms something so
romantic as TO constitute most interest
ing story.
In the summer of 1859, Charles Ger
oux became graduate of a college in the
Southern part of this State. He was the
descendant of an aristocratc family who |
lived in Louisiana, and, to be brief, he |
was then full embodiment of the "chiv-
airy" just having entered his majority.
While attending college he had formed the
acquaintance of Clara c., who at
tended college for young ladies in this
city, when acquaintance ripened into at
tachment and love, and, just before the
breaking out of the rebellion, they were
married, and removed South. Miss c.
was an orphan, possessed OF considerable |
property, which was held in trust by her
uncle, Southern minister, who had raised
her from infancy, and personally superin-
tended her education. In addition to the
endowments of college education, she
was possessed of a strong character bor-
dering almost on the masculine, but tenn
pered with a sweetness and mildness not
often combined in the same person. She
was at once handsome and womanly.
Within year after their marriage and
settlement in the South came fierce, wild
blast of war from Sumpter's parapet, and
there was none more ready to enter the
deadly fray than Charles Geroux. His
political tutors were practical secessionists,
and he entered upon the war with fervor
and zeal to command the determination of
his friends, and which secured him ma
jor's commission. His wife opposed his
mad schemes with all the power Of a wo-
man seloquence, but to no avail. She open
ly espoused the cause of the Union, and
steadfastly refused to cooperate with her
new friends and neighbors. Notwithstand-
ing her love for the old flag, and open
| Unionism, her husband loved her, and
while her husband was at home the neigh
bors respected her.
Geroux invested all his ready property
which included his wIfe's fortune, in Con-
federate bonds, placed them iu her hands,
gave her kiss for short farewell, as
suring her that the war would soon be
over, and, marching at the head of
the victorious column of his country's de-
7 tenders, she would be proud to welcome
him. After his departure, her treatment
by his relatives and neighbors became al
most intolerable because of her hatred Of
secession. ~ srr IL,
: After two years of service in the Con-
federate army. he was captured a prisoner
by the victorious Sherman, in his march
to Atlanta, and sent TO Camp Douglas.
This was good news to his wife, who
could no longer endure the persecution
she received at the South, she resolved to
, make her way North and join him in his
. prison home, and if she could not secure
!, his pardon, TO aS FEAST stay poa- aim. Her
Confederate bonds were worthless, and
she was penniless. She made her way to
I the Mississippi river, and took passage on
the ill-fated steamer Sultana for the North;
she sold some jewelry for money sufficient
toacarry her to Chicago. Arriving at
Memphis, her child was taken very i'll,
and by the advice of the captain Of the
Sultana, she remained there to secure med
ical aid for the child. Within twenty -feur
hours thereafter the boiler of the Sutana
exploded, and 1900 lives were lost.
:. Geroux felt i'll at ease in Camp Doug
lass, and made many stratagems to escape.
He finally succeeded in bribing a raw SEN
tinel to let him pass, and to avoid pur-
suit resort to deception became necessa-
ry. Ascomrade ofhis was on the point of
death. His mess dressed the dead soldier
in the Majors uniform, and conveyed him
to the dead house, and gave his name as
Major Charles Geroux, Sd Louisiana
Regiment, 9. 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 Camp Douglass dead, by Z. A. Jordan,
J undertaken for the government.
That night Geroux escaped. His alb
sence created no inquiry, as he was re-
ported dead. For the purpose of avoiding
public roads and conveyance, he took a
} horse from pasture near Camp Douglas,
belonging to J.. l.. Hancock, formerly
President of the Board of Trade of Chi
cago, and by avoiding public roads as
, much as possible, reached Momence the
next day. His actions excited suspicion,
and he was arrested on suspicion of hav-
ing stolen the horse and was logged in the
| hankdkee Jdli. lie was taktH Out OH u
writ of habus corpus, and no proof being
found to hold him, he was discharged.
Coming thence to this city he obtained
situation in wholesale grocery store.
/ After an unusual delay in passing let
7 tiers through the lines, he learned that his
two brothers had been killed in the battle
Q of the Wilderness, that his fathers estate
had been con6scated TO the United States
Government, and his father had volunta-
; rily exiled himself to Mexico. OF his wife
: and child, the only information was they
: had sought to get North, and took passage
Z on the Sultana, since which they had not
c been heard from, and no doubt remained
!. but they had perished. His true position
= had been studiously concealed, and he
avoided his former acquaintances. Short
' ly after he received this intelligence from
the South, Sherman started on his grand
{ merch from Atlanta, and Grant marshal
!, ed his grand army before Petersburg, and
the Confederate States army vanished al
: most as vision. During the past sum-
4 mer Geroux returned to the South, and
was fu ly confirmed that the information
n he had received about his family, and that