, 1880-07-05
Wade Hampton and His Leg.

It is rather mournful to look at Wade
Hampton in the Senate, nursing his
stump of leg and subjecting his
splendid physique to the disgrace of
crutches. He is the only cripple in the
body, I mean visibly so. To be sure
his colleague, the dashing Butler, has
but one leg, but you might watch him
move about for ten years and not know
it, so perfectly does he manage his
cork. To be sure, too, there are men
who suffer, sometimes intensely, for
trying to stop bullets in the late un-
pleasantness, like Gordon, and Ransom,
and Mackey; but their infrmities are
not visible. Not so with Hampton.
He is in the very prime of life, scarcely
over fifty, and a hopeless cripple. No
body feels pain on looking at Aleck
Stephens, for his case is just the result
of slow and natural process of decay,
which he rather seems to relish. But
you jnsensibly feel deep sympathy
with Hampton's loss as with the late
Senator Morton's infrmities, because
both came along prematurely, like the
hurricane on the oak, and marred power
full frames. And the general croons over
his abbreviated limb all the time-not
in any growing or testy spirit, for he is
the soul of patience, but it must be re-
membered that his whole life has been
one of nerve, vim, dash, and his present
forced inactivity must only intensity
the memory of his daring exploits and
"moving accidents by flood and field"
Can it be supposed that when Morton
sat in the Senate, big, chained dog,
the defenseless prey of the smallest
cur that had legs and could use them,
he never fretted at the picture of his
past activity, when he used to bound
into the saddle at his governors Office
in war time, and dash to camp or ar
senal, the very embodiment of physical
vigor as he lashed his horse to a white
foam through the excited streets? No
wonder, then, that while the general
nurses his leg he also nurses manly re-
grets. Several interesting incidents
happened lately in single day, as told
by one of Hampton's intimate friends.
The general, in the hope of picking up
some views about cut legs, has way
of stopping people similarly afflicted.
As he was standing on his crutches in
the main hall, near the Senate entrance,
a large man came along, his right leg
lost above the knee, and he had some
patent arrangement that seemed like a
framework, light and portable. to help
him out of his scrape. Accosting him,
Hampton spoke of their mutual mfr
mites, and asked how that arrangement
worked. Very well,' replied the
stranger. 1t is an Invention of my
own," and he went on to explain it.
May | ask where you lost your leg ?"
inquired the general. Yes, certainly,
it went off when Hampton charged our
battery at Gettysburg.' Indeed I'm
grieved to hear it." said the general,
very sincerely. my name is Hamp-
ton." They shook hands very warmly
over the bloody cbasm, and the stranger
turned out to be Representative Caulk,
of Wisconsin.
Later in the day the general was on
his way home in the street Car when a
man entered with only one arm, the
other gone at the socket. The general
invited him to seat and managed the
payment OF his fare.
"Where did yon lose your arm ?"
asked Hampton.
Well. sir. it was at Gettysburg
answered the man, "when Hampton
made that terrific charge with his
cavalry"
Whereupon those two shook and
made up, and the man now says if
Hampton is put on the Democratic
ticket he will swallow it hook and line.
It was on the same bloody field that
Pleaston and Hampton met as rival
cavalry leaders, and they met only on
Wednesday last over the pipe of peace.
Pleaston was enchanted with his old