Fort Worth daily gazette. (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1888-12-23
A SOUVENIR OF THE VAR.

| The following souvenir shown by a
gentleman of Pana H., who was born and bred
a Southerner. 1t recalls an incident Of General
Lees surrender at Appomattox. The Confeder-
ates had been without food for two days while
marching and fighting. In their retreat from
| Petersburg, and for military reasons, the light
| ing of fires at night prohibited. After the
| announcement of General Lees surrender, and
| while waiting for the conclusion of negotiations
| hunger became rather pressing. Il young SOL
| der, lank, lean and ragged, with bloody cloth
| bound around his head, approached the officer in
| command of his regiment and asked him for
! some bread or money with which he could buy
something to eat from the suttlers of the federal
army. To which request his colonel replied that
| he had no bread, but would give him a bill with
his Endorsement on it, and he handed MIN Con-
federate note with the following lines written on
the back;
Representing nothing on God green earth, now,
And naught in the water below it;
AS the pledge of a nation that is dead and gone,
Keep it, dear FRIEND and show 1t.
Show it to those who will lend an ear
To the tale that this paper can tell
OF liberty, born OF the patriot dream,
OF the storm-cradled nation that fell.
Too poor to possess the precious ores,
And too much of stranger to borrow,
We issued to-day our promise to pay,
And hoped to redeem on the morrow.
The days rolled on and weeks became years,
But our Golfers were empty still.
Coin was so rare that the treasury quaked
If dollar should drop IN the TILL
But the faith that was in US was strong indeed,
And our poverty well we disceTned,
And these little checks represented the pay
That our suffering volunteers earned.
We knew it had hardly a value in gold,
Yet, as gold, our soldiers received it.
It gazed in our eyes with promise to pay,
And each patriot soldier believed it.
But our boys thought little Of price or pay,
Or the bills that were overdue.
We knew if it brought US our bread to-day,
1t was the best our poor country could do.
Keep it. 1t tells our history all over,
From the birth of its dream to the last;
Modest. and born of :he angel Hope,
Like the hope Of success, II passed.
The above appeared in THE GAZETTE
some days ago, rs copied from New
York newspaper. The following letter
in reference thereto will be read with in
rerest by many old "Confeds. - THE
GAZETTE knew Major Jonas of the Aber-
deem Miss y Examiner in the long ago,
and never heard his authorship of the
poem disputed; nor did THE GAZETTE
ever know that any pecu-
liar or romantic cir cumstances
attended the composition of
the poem 1t was republished as re-
minder of the days that are dead and
without accurate recollection of the exact
expression of the sentiment so mournfully
and beautifully uttered by the Mississippi
soldier:
GALVESTON, TEX, Dec. II, 1888.
To the Gazette.
The enclosed, "A Souvenir OF the War, - taken
from your issue of Sunday, December 9, 1855, is
before me. The romantic part of the story is
great injustice to the author. These lines, or
rather the correct ones, were composed and
written on the back of Confederate bill by Sam
uel Alroy Jonas, Esq, late editor of a newspa-
per in Aberdeen, Miss, and now of Washing
ton, D. c. He is brother of Hon. B. F. Jonas,
late United States senator from Louisiana, and
Mr.. S. A. Jonas is the author of other Southern
poems and if you will write him at Washington,
D. c., he will take great pleasure in sending you
a correct copy, and not this garbled version.
Yours respectfully, HEN. J. LABATT.
P. 81 cannot spare correct copy have.