Memphis daily appeal. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1847-1886, 1869-09-05
MORE THAN ROMANCE.
The Life of a Gallant Confederate
A Soldier Hero.

A writer in the Kansas City Times
tells part of the story Of the life Of the
wonderful st. Lcger Grenfel, who for
his devotion to the Southern cause
was confined in the Dry TOrtugas,
whence he escaped only TO find, II IS
feared, a watery grave. The writer
says:
The career of this man is as wonder
full as it was alluring. Romance
seemed TO have entered into his being
and given to the soldier of the nine
teenth century the personal dCring
and adventure of the seventeenth. a
captain in the Crimea, he rode down
to the charge at Balaklava with Car
digan, when the ninety-secOnd High
landers won their bOnnets, and when
"Never since 10 days of Jesus,
Trembled so the Chersonesus."
An aid-de-camp to Bazaine, the
French Emperor's commander-in-
chief in Mexico, he was desperately
wounded at Magenta in the celebrated
charge made by two brigades of ZoU-
ayes upon the massed artillery of the
Austrians. A private in China, he
was the second at the storm of the
EmperOr's palace, and received a a
bre stroke which marked his face for
life, from forehead to chin. A lieu
tenant of Saphis in Algeria, the man
who paraded his squadron one day for
review before Marshal Mcmahon.
The Frenchman's trained eye ran
down the swarthy ranks, and hecailed
to an orderly, "Send that officer to
me who has a seat like an English
Guardsman." The officer came, sa-
Iuted, drew himself up-it was Gren-
fel. Wandering on leave of absence
to any country where pennOn hOated
or sabre flashed, he had taken service
with this superb vet merciless branch
Of Chasseurs d'Afrique, and had won
a commission by extraordinary dar-
ing.
Clothed in turban and trowsers, he
was found by some English tourists in
the army Of the Sultan; a liOn-hunter
in South Africa; a soldier who was
s~hipwrecked on the coast of Spain;
speaking a dozen languages perfectly Il
SCARED by fifteen wounds from bail
and blade; having beautiful blue eyes,
long white hair; s~ixty-ive, and as
straight as Tecumseh; 4 peerless
swOrdsman; capable of hitting his
own ball at twenty PAGES with a re-
vOlver; temperate; matches in horse
manship; generous TO a fault; loving
war as senSuOuS men love double
breasted m~istresses; a soldier fit ford
the Grand Army; handsome as
Lannes, the experiences of forty peril
Gus years yet in mind unwritten; I'M
tamable as an Arab; reckless to te-
merity; tender to WOman-a hero in
every walk oflife-why should such a
mar be driven down to the sea when
the wind and the night had made of
that sea q vast eXpanSe of pOpulOus
graves and no star anywhere in all
the heavens TO light the plunge into
eternity2
All! it was but the old struggle
which had been going on for three
thousand years between PatTician and
Proletarian. Guarding that pestilen-
tial island in ambush in mid ocean
were seen wearing the uniform of the
United States arny-plebians born
and bred, who hated the royal old
soldier for his scars, for the orders he
wore, for the strange tongues he
spoke, for that imperishabIe dignity
and bearing which cling to a gentle
LlAdll HAlCA al EAcE HIS AEECEESA HILL I
For the honor OF our army be it spO-
ken, there were no regulars at Dry
TOrtugas. POpinjay lieutenants, crea-
lures with souls of shOddy and man.
ners OF Esquimaux, kept watch and
ward over the manacled lion; drove
him to work when the battered frame
was weak; tortured him when the
spirit was on its knees in
physical languOr; and at last, when a
storm came out of the east more ter
rible than siege or battles, he who
had tossed death away from his path.
way as a child losses aside a tOy. fled
to the sea for sueeOr. and the sea re-
ceived him and gave for the tried
frame one of her immemOrial graves I
to be vacated never more until the
great God judges alike those who per-
secuted and those who endured.
Such as We have sketehed rapidly
was the life of st. Leger Grenfei.
Coming to America at the commence
ment OF our civil war, he espoused the
side OF the COnfederates, and took
with Gen. John H. Morgan,
rapidly rising to the rank offs Colonel.
de was spoken of by those who knew
as the 4" bravest of the brave"
Foremost in pursuit and hindmost
ever in retreat, no man in any army
won greater or more peTilous laurels.
And then, had there been soldiers
among his jailOrs, how it would have
delighted them to talk to such a Pa
To talk of the Light Brigade;
OF grim old Pelissier; of Inkerman; of
the 92d H~ighlanders forming only
deep to resist the cavalry of an
of fair-hafred Nolan applying
a torch TO the magazine which blew
himself and a brigade into eternity;
Of poor old Strangways, who cried out
in a voice as sweet as a young girls,