Omaha daily bee., 1895-11-14
HEROES IN BEUE AND GRAY
Fortunes in Treasure rove Secroted
Throughout the Midsouth,
HIDING PLACES MAY NEVER BE DIvULGtD
Lees High Estimate of
Military Cn~pncity-Had selected
Him as Successor In the Event
of Meeting observation-disclosures.

OF treasure trove from that large section OF
the midsouth which was for three years Of
civil war a debatable land, wherein, outside
the army posts, there was no security Of per-
son or property. The invaders themselves
had a pretty taste for looting, says the At
lanta Constitution, but they were nothing like
so rapacious as the guerillas, who plundered
impartially men of all sympathies, and as
often sported blue and brass as the confed-
crate gray. The g~uerillas had, indeed, but a
single active principle-pillage. One cid
farmer who had held three years crops until
prices were at their highest, got $4,000 in
the yellow metal, took it home and gave it to
his wife, bidding her do the best she could
with it. She was an easy-going, unthrifty
sort of body and buried II in the garden in
plain sight of everybody about the place, taxi
ing only the precaution to set a struggling
rosebush on top Of It, and, further, to put
above the gold a be of silver that she herself
had saved up. That was Friday night. On
Sunday the family all went to preaching.
When they came home the rose tree lay up
rooted, the bag Of silver was gone, and so
were a wagon and team, besides a family of
negroes.
They had taken all of their belonging
and so much of their masters and run
away to the nearest federal outpost, which
was twenty miles off. Pursuit was useless.
and would have been foolish. The farmer
eyed the rife hole a minute, then thrust his
armdown into il, scratched about furiously,
clutched something deeper down and brought
up the bag of gold. The denpoilers, finding It
had not thought to dig deeper. But the
owner was not satisfied to trust his wifa's
hiding further. He was a cody man, but
Sunday though 1t was, he swung the bag over
his shoulder and tramped off into the woods.
L., ala not pp,a haph until tho NIGHT uyqe
well on and said nothing of what he had
done with the money. He never said anything
in fact. Six months later he was found dead
in bed of heart disease, and though hio heirs
hunted high and low, have asked the help
of the divining rod and consulted ~cla!rvoy-
ants, to say nothing of having clsared up the
whole woodland, and dug over the whole
l,000-acre farm, to this day they have never
found a trace of the lost money.
Another man buried a pot of gold in a
rickety barn, then set fire to the structure,
being certain that no one would think of
rummaging in the ashes. And still another
put $50, 600 in gold and greenbacks in the
earthen floor of his smoke house, and let
L. stay there five years, not daring to take ii
cut until reconstruction was pretty well ac-
complished. One of his neighbors, the
tfriftiest man in the county. was known to
have put a very large sum in the rock walls
Of his cellar. but to have grown distrustful
of that hiding place, and so to have chosen
another. Where the Other was located never
came out, the man who chose 1t was Sc
c~retive, and did not tell even his only son.
BY and by he was stricken speeches. and
motionless at a time when he locked to b.
good for years Of life. He did not live six
months, and throughout them he made de9,
perate efforts to tell his secret, but all in
vain. 1t is still a secret-eXCept as to a
fsw thousand dollars, which his grandson
found twenty years after, under the rock
pillars of an old corn crib.
MALONE AND HIS COW.
At a Inner in Lexington, soon after the
war, General Lee said that he had fixed upon
Malone as his successor in command Of the
confederate forces. IF | had been killed, y
Lee is reported to have said, General Ma,
hone would have succeeded me in command
This incident is related in an autograph let,
ter from ]. Horace Lacey. reproduced in Ben
Buffers autobiography. The truth Of tbs
statement has been questioned by General
Mahone's enemies in Virginia, says the st
Louis Republic, but no one has ever pro-
duced a reasonable denial, while every one
even the ssverest of his enemies, has &C
knowledged the high esteem in which Malone
was held by Lee.
Malone was a civil engineer by profes-
sion. He brought into use in every engage
ment the skill he had gained in this call
ing at the Virginia Military institute. from
which he had been graduated in 1S47. He
was an organizer of men. Those who fought
by his side say he conducted himself in bat
tie just as If he were going about an i'm
portant piece of engineering. He was always
calm and self-possessed, and the precision
and elaboration which he employed were
ever successful agencies in his career.
When he first entered the southern army
he was an almost hopeless dyspeptic. He
had suffered for many years the uncertain
and untimely effects of that exasperating
malady. He thought he should have fresh
milk every day in the field, for it had formed
a part Of his diet at home, so he took a con
into the army and carried the beast with
him all through the war.
General Malone often related the annoy
ance the COW caused him. One time General
Lee came in to him after the COW had been
in the way and said: General, you will
have to leave that COW behind"
Il cannot do it, SIR Malone replied. al
We cannot get along with the COW l will have
TO resign"
So the COW remained, and she was actually
at General Mahone's camp on the memorable
April day when Lee surrendered to Grant al
Appomattox. General Malone took the ami.
nal home to Petersburg afterward.
The general was noted also in the army
for the complete household outfit he carried
With cooking utensils he was particularly
wen supplied, and he afterward often boosted
that he lived as well in the army as he lived
in Washington. He had supplied his caml
wagons with a full outfit of bedding and
household contrivances, and though the wal
was q perpetual moving day for him, he
often said that II he had another war to &c
through he would do the same way.
AN EARNEST SOLDIER.
when the war was on" remarked an
eX-congressman to a Washington Star
writer, land / felt pretty sure it was to be
no ninety-day affair, l went to work to re-
cruit a company, and see what | could dc
toward settling it. lived in a community
whose men were as willing to take a few
risks in that line as myself, and it wasn't
any trouble at all to pick up enough men
for a company. l had any number of en-
thusiasts in my command, but one boy about
16 years old had more enthusiasm than all
Of us combined. He wasn't very handsome
and he wasn't very good, but he was full of
hurra, and that was what we wanted, be-
cause | felt that hard times were before us
and all the surplus effervescence would be
worked off as soon as we got into the field.
This particular young fellow, !
thought, would be about the first to
cave, for he talked like a man who was more
mouth than sand. and | can't say that had
much confidence 10 him, except for temporary
purposes. Well, ] got the company together
in short order, and 1t wasn't very long before
we were ordered to the front with the regi
ment. One night, shortly after we got into
the fighting country, we came within range
of the Johnnies They were somewhere or
the other side OF a small stream, with 6
bridge over ii, and my company was sent for,
ward to protect the bridge. AS we moved
forward there was no sign Of the enemy
and we didn't expect him for a mile at least