The Colfax chronicle., 1900-06-09
BORN AMONG BULLETS.
births That Have Occurred Amidst
the Flying Missiles of
DeaVh.

It is one of life's strange ironies that
while battlefelds have the most terri
BILE of death-rolls they equally have
their records of births; and the very
guns which have taken their toll of life
have given the first greeting to lives
newly born.
This was markedly the case in the
Eranco-German war. says London Tit
Bits, when hundreds of children were
born in hamlets and villages which
practically formed part of the battle
fields, and when the first sound that
newborn children in Strasburg and
other besieged towns heard was the
roar of the cannon laundering outside
the walls.
1t is little more than two years since
the death at Birmingham of one of our
Oldest and most trusted railway guards,
who was actually born while the bull
lets we're flying on the field of Water
loo. His father, who was in Highland
regiment. had gone out with our army
to fight Napoleon, and his loyal wife
followed him later, only reaching Wa
terloo in time to give birth to her child
when the battle was raging at its fierc-
est.
Ten years earlier the wife of French
soldier, called Chatasquon, gave birth
to a boy on the battlefield of Austerlitz,
while Napoleon's legions were moving
down Russians and Austrians by thou
sands; and by sad coincidence the
boys father was killed by cannon ball
almost at the very moment of his child's
birth.
On the battlefield of Gettysburg,
where Lees army suffered such irrepar-
able losses, the wife of a confederate
officer, who had bravely followed her
husband through the campaign, gave
birth to daughter, who unfortunate
ly died in infancy; and another ''child
of the battlefield" in the states lived to
marry an eminent lawyer and poll
tician, and may coRceivably one day be
mistress of the white house.
1t is not many weeks since Mrs. Miles,
one of the oldest inhabitants of Mel
rose, died at the age of 80. Mrs. Miles
earliest memories were associated with
the horrors and discomforts of war.
Her father, who was gunner, fought
through the Peninsular war, and his
wife accompanied him with her baby
daughter, who had been born at Wool
wich. Mrs. Miles to the last remem-
bered the booming of the guns at
Quatre Bras, and recalled the gruesome
picture of Highlander whose legs had
been shot off below the knees. 1t is
scarcely surprising to learn that a
grandson of this martial old lady is
fighting our battles to-day in South
Africa.
The wife of one of the most eloquent
and successful of the younger French
advocates was introduced to war in its
most horrible aspect at the immature
age of two years. AT the close of the
terrible battle of Sedan, when the field
was drenched with the best blood of
France, tiny fair-haired, blue-eyed
child was found toddling from one
group of fallen men to another.
She seemed to realize nothing of the
horror of her surroundings, and when
questioned was only able to say that
her name was 'Estelle" (which she pro-
nounced ''Etelle'), and that she wanted
to go home. She was placed in the care
of the wife of French soldier; and
although every effort was made later to
discover her parents they were never
found.
Estelle grew up to be girl of singu-
lar beauty and sweetness of character,
and her foster-parents, Who had pros
pered in business, were able to give her
an excellent education. 1t was no sur
prise, therefore, when, ten years ago,
the Maid of Sedan" was led to the altar
by the brilliant young lawyer to whom
even the exalted Office of president is,
according to his friends, a possible am
bition.