The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1896-07-08
| y GREAT CAR0LINIANS.
AdIt. Gen. Holmes, U. C. ", Gives Per.
sonaI War "Reminiscences,
From the Sunny South.

FROM the sunny S0hth.
To tell you who was 'the coolest
soldier or officer I ever saw under fire.
I find impossible. But my types Of
intrepid soldiers, who I again and
again saw under fire, are Lieut.. Gen.
Wade Hampton and Major Gen. NJ. G.
Butler. under whom [ served during
the last year of the war, when to fight
daily for weeks was common. Both of
these very distinguished generals were
both physically and morally brave
traits not always found united, and
yet to me there seemed a difference
Gen. Hampton always appeared to me
unconscious Of danger, with the fight
ing instinct always uppermost;
and to see a body Of Yankees was to
commence fighting, and if possible to
leaG the charge. Perhaps this came
not only from his inherited courage,
but his many years Of successful hunt
ing of bear in the cane brakes of Mis-
/ sissippi had Injured him to meeting
personal danger face to face, and as it
was danger sought, he knew only the
thrill of personal combat forgetful Of
possible disaster.
Gen. Hampton never lost his head,
as was shown at Trevilian Station, Va,
June II, 1864, when Gen. Fitz Lee al
lowed Gen. Curtis to get in the rear of
Butler and Young's brigades, fight
ing Sheridan under Gen. Hampton s
immediate command. Here Hamp-
tons GOODNESS and fearlessness en-
abled him, with the assistance Of "the
best soldier I ever knew" a. Hamp-
ton calls Rosser, to turn a probable
rout into an assured success.
Hence Hampton stands second to
none an a hard fighter, and az a nat
ural and instructive tactician in con-
tradistinction to the great trained
soldiers, Lee, Johnston and others.
Gen. Butler, on the other hand,
wasn't Injured to personal combat and
danger by his ante-bellum sports, but
so fine was his courage, 80 mistaken
his nerve, that, if he realized danger,
he scorned it, and his chiseled face,
never so handsome as when cold-set
for battle, never showed if or not his
soul was in tumult. He sat on his
horse, as I once saw him when report
ing to him with my immediate COM
mander, whose adjutant l was, like a
marble statue, though a full battery of
artillery and many riAemen we're max
ing him their mark, as he occupied
the crest of a hill in an open road, di
recting the fight; his staff and couriers
having been ordered to dismount, and
seek shelter in the woods on either
side. When Hampton, with his two
A. D. C.'s, and handful of couriers
and the writer, then acting A. D. G..
on the staff of Gen. E. Mclver Law,
commanding Buffers cavalry brigade,
charged the Yankees in the streets of
Fayetteville, N. c., in the spring Of
1864, when falling back before Sher-
man, and always fighting his advance
guard and fanking parties, he rose
from the breakfast table, spraDg
through the window and mounting a
| courier horse, dashed at the Yam
KEGS and drove them out of the town
and across the creek, and he vas so
cool that when the fight was over he
told one of his couriers to find out the
owner of a horse he had noticed during
the charge and send him to his head
quarters, as he wanted to buy the
horse. In this brush, where we were
s~audwiched between Yankees, and had
to kill and dispense those in front, and
then kill and capture all of those in
our rear, Gen. Hampton, after the
fight, and as he was riding back into
town, giving instructions to his couri
ers as he rode to pick up every arm
the Yankees had dropped, some one
asked him how many Yankees he had
killed.
"Only three" he replied. IT
didn't have my sword, or l would
have killed more of them
During this same retreating fight
through North Carolina I remember
one day a courier dashing up to Gen.
Butler just as we had crossed a mar
row, deep creek, and the bridge was
being destroyed, and excitedly re-
ported that the enemy had crossed the
creek higher up and we're then in the
rear of our right flank, I felt nervous,
but Gen. Butler. to me, seemed pro-
vokingly cool. Questioning the col
rier closely he then ordered a staff Of
fcer to the real to put a battery and a
few supporting cavalry companies dis
mounted into position to hold the
enemy in check until the rear guard
could leisurely fall back beyond the
point of intersection Of the two roads
| These little incidents observed by me
daily were the standings that seemed
to bring out more strongly the magnif-
icent fighting qualities and reserved
force of the great cavalry leader and
his intrepid lieutenant.
Then yet another name must | men
ton, and alas of dead and not a liv-
ing hereof one who, in a marked de-
gree, possessed that cool courage called
fortitude, the trait that women possess
so much more largely than e Capt.
Moses Benbow Humphrey, Of Claren-
don County, South Carolina. the name
l love to recall. When the war broke
out in 1861 Humphrey was a second
class man of the South Carolina Mill
tary Academy, being educated at the
"Citadel," in this city. He was one
of the cadets who fred on the Star of
the West when she tried to reinforce
Fort Sumter, January 8, 1861, and en-
tered the Confederate service in the
summer of 1862, as captain of the
"Cadet Rangers" afterwards T Troop,
9Th South Carolina cavalry, accompany
of forty cadets, who, thinking it their
duty to take the field, left their alma
mater, although they knew it meant
expulsion. Humphreys first oppor-
tunitv of showing his grit was on