The Sunday herald and weekly national intelligencer., 1891-04-26
GEN. PRYOR WAS RECKLESS.
What Caused the Feeling Against Him
in the South.

What Caused the Feeling Against Him
in the South.
There recently appeared in print an article
written by Amos Cummings giving a second
hand account of the circumstances under
which Roger A. Pryor was captured in front
of Petersburg. Afterward a friend of Pryor
wrote a correction of certain statements made
in Mr. Cummings's letter, and wound up by
claiming that Pryor was trapped in his edi-
torial zeal to exchange newspapers with the
enemy's picket by a breach of faith on the
part of the Yankees. This may be true, but
1t may not prove uninteresting, on account of
Gen. Pryor's prominence in the country, to
give an idea of the feeling that prevailed
around Lees headquarters and in Petersburg,
where everybody knew him, when his capture
and the circumstances surrounding the same
were first heard of.
The writer at the time was lieutenant in
command of Company E, Irish battalion of
regulars, Lees headquarter infantry guard,
and thus had opportunity to know the senti-
ments expressed as to the event, both in the
city and about the headquarters. And it is
here stated that the general trend of opinion
was unfavorable to Gen. Pryor. Before he
was captured he had row with jefferson Da-
Wis about his operations on the Blackwater
River, resigned his commission, entered the
army again as private trooper, and had been
detailed at Lees headquarters as an orderly.
What caused the feeling against Gen. Pryor
was this: The order against the exchange of
papers or tobacco or any other courtesies be-
tween the pickets had been made peremptory
by Gen. Lee, under pain of drumhead court
martial and instant execution, and while the
practice had been winked at previously it was
entirely stopped after that order had been pro-
mulgated to the troops all along the lines in
front of Richmond and Petersburg.
In the capture of Pryor, who owas in private's
uniform and consequently not recognized by
his captors, for the first time known, the
Yankees, after pledging their faith for immu-
nifty from capture, broke their pledge. Now,
there was not circumstance attendant upon
the capture which would not be perfectly con-
sistent to an unbiased mind with the theory of
Gen. Pryor's entire innocence of any intention
to desert his colors. Knowing the mans
fervid Virginianism, the writer does not be-
lieve that he would have deserted his colors
even though smarting under the sting of his
enforced resignation by Jefferson Davis.
Pryor had benin command of three thousand
men, and when he found himself minus his
extensive authority and relegated to the com
mand of men whom he had formerly COM
manded he became restive, and was perhaps
more reckless than he otherwise would have
been. AT any rate, what is above stated is
true, that there was a dubious feeling in
Petersburg about the whole transaction.
Perhaps it was owing to a knowledged and
justiiable resentment at this feeling, freely
expressed at the time, that Gen. Pryor shook
the dust of his loved mother State from his
feet and cast in his fortunes with New York.
And it is perhaps also on this account that he
has seldom or never revisited the Old Domin-
ion or affiliated with Virginians in his new
home. T. j. NJ