The Coconino weekly sun., 1895-05-30

IN FRONT OF BATON ROUGE.
 Army of the Republic. Col. Mussey had met many old friends whom he had not seen for a quarter of a century. But when Jack Adams came into the office the scene was dramatic beyond description. Col. Mussey acted like a man whose dearest brother had come back from the grave. He said:
 Why, my dear boy, l saw you killed. I saw a siX-pound cannon ball cut you in two in front of Baton Rouge. We were in a charge, and pressed on with the regiment. Other fellows were fall ing all around us, some of them killed, but nearly all of them wounded. We accounted for all of them, buried the dead and sent the others to hospitals. l supposed that fragments of your body were buried, for never saw you after that cannon ball struck you"
 ''Yes, Fred, you are right about that cannon ball hitting me-" said Adams, with smile. But it didn't cut me in two. As matter of fact, it was spent ball, and only grazed my right hip. suppose 1t appeared to go clear through inc. But you must remember that there was some little excitement just then, and maybe you got rattled There was enough fighting and enough danger to rattle the bravest fellows that day. We'll, the spent ball paralyzed me, and bruised me, and nearly killed me. But I was breathing, although unconscious, so they picked me up, put me iD an ambulance and sent me to a field hospital. Then l was carried on to hospital steamer, taken to general hospital at New Orleans, and finally recovered. l never went to the front again, and it was manya day and many month before was sound and well again. But here I am again, in the body, and mighty glad to see my old friend and comrade again."
 Col Mussey had a similar singular ex- perience about the same time. We had desks in the same office room, and one evening he came over to see me, and said. with considerable excitement: II have discovered my brother, Al. Mus sey, after nearly thirty years of silence on his part. He left our Vermont home after the war, saying he would never come back until his fortune was made. We have never heard of him since; and now have discovered him."
 "Where is he, and how did you find him?" I inquired.
 Ut is providential," said Col. Mussey. 'The pension office sends typewriter slip every day giving the names of Ohio and Indiana soldiers to whom pensions have been issued l never received a California slip before, because my paper does not circulate in California. And tonight in my envelope, by an error of some clerk, found the California pension list. was about to throw it in the waste basket when I saw the name of Albert W. Mussey. That must be my brother. He is in California. He has applied for pension, It has been issued, and this slip bearing his name, the only California slip have ever seen, has been waited into my of- fec. I will write to him."
 The result of this peculiar incident was that Col. Mussey wrote to the pen sioner, received reply and then sent word to his venerable mother in Yer mont that her eldest boy was still alive. Al Mussey had become a prosperous rancher. He had been silent for many years and dreaded to write to his home, lest sad news of the deaths of his kin. drsd might come to him. But, after nll, the family was reunited, and they nll look upon that stray California pen sion list as providential occurrence.
 More remarkable than the story o1 Jack Adams is thrilling romance which the records of the pension office disclose concerning Hugh Thompson of Van Vert, O., a farmer lad who had enlisted in the Fifteenth Ohio infantry September 1, 1862, and marched away to the front with the tens of thousands of other farmer laddies who comprised the bone and sinew of the rank and file of the armies of the union. At the battle of Chickamauga, as a comrade relates, while they were lying on the ground at the front to escape the tenn, pest of balls that swept the thin woods where his regiment was engaged, a case shot, probably defected from a tree, struck him in the head, and his face was instantly covered with blood. His companion spoke to him, but he did not answer. Just then the order to fall back was given. He was assist cd to his feet staggered few feet in a oazed kind of way, and fell in heap as confederate brigade swarmed into athe woods. and his comrades were