The Warner weekly sun. (Warner, Brown Co., Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1885, 1885-02-06
4 CONFEDERATE WAR STORY.

train in the progress OF his LIE; as II
the world had gone on and left him
hopelessly behind-no Christmas tur-
key for him this year, not for twenty
years past, / r~eckon-the old confeder-
ate soldier, who limped about awkward
". for he had a lot of lead to carry, told
me this story the other day in the Shen-
andoah. Is it untrue, or dull, blame him
not me, I only give it as got it. Cen
eral "Jeb" Stuart was hanging on the
federal flank. His midnight camp was
pitched on the hillside. Up the
hill a little way lay a farm house;
two or three haystacks hung upon
the hillside. The worn-out horses
fed there and nodded their drowsy
heads in the hay. All around on the
ground under the trees in the camp the
troopers lay-black men, white men,
brown men, men who had seen dozen
Of battles and hardly yet as many years,
a mixed and motley lot; ragged,
wretched, hungry. They lay on their
bellies before the fire, munching
roasted corn, gnawing it off the cob
g~reedily, husking il, roasting it, rolling
il in the ashes on the Goals, smuggling it
on the blazing fire Of old Virginia fence
rails. Now and then a shot rang out
in the clear, still night, away where
the pickets met 10 closely for peace,
and now and then better disposed men
on the picket lines, or more favored
and fortunate, met together and reach
ed each other on their bayonets tobac-
co, and old ragged newspapers in a
sort of exchange of prisoners of war.
The moon rode high and white in the
great blue sea above, and all the stars
Of heaven looked down in pity and In
peace.
Then a song brust out. The black
men we're singing louder, sweeter, with
more pathos and memories of home
than the white men. 1t vas a sad, gro
tesque, weird and unique picture. Sud-
denly Stuart stood in the midst of the
uproarious lot.
Disciplined Look here, Sergeant
Zeb, 1 want discipline or death. Disci-
pine, i say. Do you expect me to fight
Battles and win victories with a bowling
mob like this, and the enemy right here
waiting to recall on us the moment we
give him a chance! Discipline, / say.
Hang your blacks, and shoot your
whites, or have disciplined
Silence in a second! And the long
lean men and the sleeping lads pulled
themselves together and tried to look
and act like soldiers, while the blacks,
ct the suggestion OF their being hung
ap, melted back from the fitful embers
into the night, as if they were q part OF
It, Then the weary, bearded chief
threw himself on a heap of saddles at
hand and forgot his sternness, as he
looked about over the wretched group
OF poor fellows gathered for q little
rest under the oaks.
Boys, I'm as hungry as q wolf; what
have you got to eat?"
A dozen men sprang up. and o half
dozen young. beerdless troopers, rushed
forward, and from out of the night, back
under trees, there came many black
'orms. And each and every one, black and
white men, old men and little boys,
reaahed up and thrust into the chieftOin's
eands. with generous alacrity an ear Of
roasted corn. Some of these ears OF
corn had only q few teetb-marks in
I them, being almost entirely intact.
others again were pretty well gnawed
down 70 the cob. But they were all
alike offered with prompt generosity.
"Cornl" and the confederate chief
shook his head with a grim and sickly
smile, as he muttered to himself :
Corn boiled corn, roasted corn, raw
corn, WHITE corn, red corn, all kinds OF
corn. No, no, boys, I'm hungry; but
1 q eat corn any more tonight
me men melted back in respectful ST.
fence into q broad circle. And there,
suddenly, somehow, in the center of the
: arcie, stood q child. q little boy, who
nad been aroused from his sleep on the
Pile OF saddles in the commotion that
amended the chieftain's coming. And
now, wide awake, with q little toy flag
IN = hand and a red apple in the 9th
y, TINS little boy stood there in the
MIDST OF these wild and ragged men,
WIN cheeks as rosy as the apple he
neld IN his dimpled little hand.
~ yer hungry, mister captain, gem
srai, here's my red apple" and with
snis tho little boy tcldled right up and
$1,000 almost between the booted legs OF
tne surprised soldier.
sergeant Zeb, where in al Jericho
aia sbis child come from? Is il yours