Staunton spectator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1849-1896, 1882-10-17
For the Spectator.
Letter from Rockbrldge-One OF the
New Orleans Tigers.

LEXINGTON, VA, Oct. S, 1882.
EDITOR SPECTATOR :-Some jottingl
from this seat of learning may interes,
your readers. The number of students
who have 80 far matriculated is q con.
siderable increase over the last, as in
deed several previous sessions.
We this moment learned of the death
on Monday last, at Jacksonville, Taze.
well county, Va, of DIR. John M.
EstilPs Oldest son.. a most promising
young physician of two years. practice,
of typhoid fever, really a scourge of that
community. There are 4S cases there,
of an unprecedented and most malig.
nant type. So much have the physi-
clans of the place been wrought upon
by their unusual labors, physicians
have been sent for outside. DR.. Estlll
had first studied law-did not like it
and graduated with unusual distinction.
Truly has the parents cup run over.
1t is the second son they have lost in
niue months, and but one son, and now
an only child, is left to them. It is re-
markable how much typhoid fever there
is through the country. DR.. Morrison,
at Rockbridge Baths, has, at this wri-
ting, about twenty cases.
Met au original character this morn
ing in the person of one of Mai. Wheat's
battalion of the New Orleans Tigers.
He came under the roof of an interest.
ing family, a mile or two in the
country, directly after the war, broken
down and literally shot to pieces,
having seuen balls in his carcass. One
of two ladies, the senior of two sisters
that he has made himself exceedingly
useful to since the war, not alone in
managing their farm of 200 acres, but
as laborer, actually picked some splin-
ters of bone from his spine that had fas-
tened themselves in his clothes. In
cidents connected with the history of
Maj. Wheat and his remarkable men
would make thrillingly interesting
chapter, had the time or you the space
for them. Some one asked the Major,
on one occasion, where his men were.
Really, can't tell you, sir, but this I
know, when 1 a0dmt them they are
here" In one of the hard fights Of the
Chickahominy the Major told his men
ate fight, and that he would fall, "but,
my men, I wish you to give me a SOL
diers' burial" Sure enough it became
too literal prophecy, and when the
time came the eighteen survivors of his
battalion, with their bay0nets, dug his
grave, and laid him away with his
pocket-book, pistols, sword. spurs, and
everything just as he fell.
The country never looked more beau
tiful than it does now, and the eviden-
ces of improvement in and around the
town meet your eye at every turn.
A friend, in the person of one of the
Professors, carried me through the new
building just being finished, "New-
comb Hail." by the widow of Warren
Newcomb. as memorial to her deceased
husband. 1t is for the library, reading
rooms, &C., and finished with our Vir-
ginia pine and vanished, and is in truth
beautiful.
So also is the interior finish of the
new Episcopal church, and the walls,
built of the beautiful Rock bridge lime
stone, an honor to the town and q
monument to the memory of Gen. Lee,
of the many he has left, were any nee
essary to keep green his memory.
My friend carried me also through
the memorial chapel, Gen. Lees Office,
the room that contains the Valentine
Statue. &c.
AS passed up street just now, saw
a crowd about the Court house, where
some one said John S. Wise was nOrat-
ing. but with no enthusiasm, as was
very evident, on the part of his hear
ers. 1t is univ ersally believed that Ma
honeism and all its cOncomitant evils is
waning rapidly in ROCKBRIDGE.