The weekly messenger. [volume] (St. Martinsville [i.e. St. Martinville] La.) 1886-1948, 1888-02-25
A LOCK OF HAIR.
An Incident in the Career Of a
Confederate Soldier.
Narrowly Escaping Death at
the Hands Of His Brother.

thrilling war story l. the Detroit Free
Press: When tn Felcra.s got posses
sion OF th- Shenandoah Valley AID re-
paired the railroad track and ran their
trains, detachments of predatory bands
made it business 20 lie in ambush aad
fire into the coaches. 4 good deal Of
this work was done for time by men
belonging to Imboden and Mosby's COM
mands, and finally, to protect them
selves, the Federals used to take along
a number Of Southern citizens. Some
would be compelled to ride on the
engine, and the others would be dis
tributcd through the cars, thus making
the chances even that if a volley was
fired some of our own people would be
killed. This stopped the practice of
ambushing trains, but not until the
writer had had very close call from
death.
l was scouting around Winchester,
and had just left a farsl house where 1
had remained all night, when squadron
of Federal cavalry struck my trail. / was
bounded and logged until mid after
noon before l got clear away from them,
and during this time / was put to such
physical cxeTtioas that l was seized
with a chill about o'clock in the after
noon, and soon became too i'll to travel.
was then il the woods, AID there l
remained until next day at noon, part
of the time out OF my head. l finally
got better, and partly by walking and
partly by crawling Preached farm house
a mile away. The farmer was a Southern
man, too old to go into the service, and
! would have been received with all
kindness but for tie Fcdcrals 1 had
scarcely entered the house when a de-
tachmcnt Of them rode up to the gate,
and then ten minutes later was being
carried of as prisoner.
The only good feature about it was
that was taken for Confederate de-
sertcr instead of spy, and my treat
ment was, therefore, far better In
three or four days was ali right again,
and then | was ordered aboard one of
the trains and given half the engineers
seat. Indeed, was chained there, and
when the officer who had the matter in
hand left me he was kind enough to
say:
There, now, if your friends can fire
into this side of the cab without hitting
you, let them pop away"
l had brother at that time in
Mosby's command, and l knew that he
had been engaged in the work Of firing
upon trains | somehow felt that We
should see Frank that day, and both
events quickly came to pass. We were
not fifteen mics out Of Winchester, and
were just pulling out of heavy cut into
piece OF woods, when | caught sight
of the head and face of man above g
log. We were running not over fifteen
miles an lour, and l was looking into
the woods. The man in ambush
was still ahead OF US when | saw
him, and We were not ten feet ncare,
when l recognized the face as Frank
| IL the same instant saw that nc mad a
cavalry carbinc resting across the log,
and that there were four or five other
men beyond Kim. They were there to
figc a vo.lcy into The train. and we OF
the engine would got it first. had
only seconds il which 70 act. The frs
thing was to shout to the engineer ant
fireman to drop to the floor, and th'
next to wheel squarc!y around and shout
to Frank:
"For Gods sake, don't shoot, It's E.
hold up"
Franks gun was pointed full at M
face as | shouted. and VIC looked RICH
into each others eyes. In that brief in
slant saw horror come to his eyes
his face grew white as snow, and h
could not move his lips. His finger wa
pulling the trigger, and it WAS too late
A sheet of flame leaped W at me, some
thing burned the side of my cheek, ant
then we hal passed on. There was bu
the enc shot. The other men lad AearJ