The Florence tribune., 1901-06-29
A STRANGE STORY. The Part Played in it by Phoenix
 Gentleman.
From the Arizona Rel ublican.l ]

POSScSSiOu one or the most curious garments ever worn by man. It is q coat patched upon patch of many colors until the texture is in places nearly an inch thick. There is also a pair of mittens similarly patched, and pair of overalls. How he embarked in the secondhand clothing business is told ia the following strange story;
 Enlisted September l, 1882. Wound ed and missing in battle of Chicka- nauga, September 10, 1863"
 From the latter date until April ?, 1888, the above record was all of the military history the war department records contained as to Hugh Thomp- son of Company "H" Fifteenth Ohio volunteer infantry. On the 2ud of April, 1888, there was added the follow ing to that record "Discharse ed, Sep tember 10, lS63."
 From September l6, 1898, until April 7, 1858, there was hiatus, not only in the records of the war department as regards Hugh Thompson, but iu the life of that soldier. By what strange, lucky or unlucky, good or evil chance claims meet and clash together in the U. S. pension bureau is in itself inex- plainable, perhaps only understand able by the higher order of theoso- phists, but true it is that many pug. zles are solved and many mysteries cleared of their clouds in that great est of all evidences of governmental recognition of patriotism, the pension bureau. And so it was, from what might seem to be a wire touched by Natures unknown that record of Hugh Thompson was completed in the war department twenty-five years af ter he had been reported by his com rades us lying dead on the gory field of famous Chickamsuga.
 In 1887, Judge Burnett, then spe- cial agent of the interior department, started out from the capital city with several cases of Hugh Thompsons in his official trunk, the principal suspicion attaching to these cases being of con spiracy to defraud the government through false personation. This par ticular Hugh Thompson, who was last seen dead on the battlefield, was not known or considered in any way as as part or parcel of the suspected bunch, but in the course of the inves tIgation of the others the government agent, following blind trail, stun bled upon the story of lost soldier, one who did not know his own name, the organization with which he had served the state he hailed from, nor any part of his life prior to 1871. He only knew that he had been soldier. Pursuing one of several clues, each of which pro- missed interesting results and each oi which when followed to an end re vealed complete story in itself, he eventually caught up with the lost soldier, who was located iu southwest ern Kansas. He was driving typical western express wagon that took hin frequently into "No-Man's Land, ]" ant he was known all along his choser route as "0ld Relia ole" This semi witless, broken-down old soldier was taken back by the agent to Van Vert county, Ohio, where, without previou notice he was ushered into an annua meet of the Fifteenth Ohio volunteei regiment. Company H, or the remnants of 1t, occupied a portion of the larg, convention hall, and as "Olt Relic Jle, with the old-time martial spirit stirred within him, marched down the middl, aisle there began a hum of voices tha culminated in cries of "Little Hugh ' By Cracky That is Little Hughl"
 It was Little Hugh," sure enougl It took several weeks of time and sev eral volumes of testimony to satisf the United States pension bureau ths "0ld Reliable" was the identical sol dier who had enlisted in Company | Fifteenth Ohio volunteer infantry, i 1862, aud who was last reporte wounded and missing in battle ( Chickamauga, September 16, 1883, but conviction finally entered the file of that bureau and the military histor of Hugh Thompson was, in so far a his discharge was concerned, made b retroaction.
 The life of Hugh Thompson from tl battle of Chickamauga until Apr 1888, would, if written, fill goo sized book. The first clearing of | mind came in 1871, when he foul himself on a road in the coal regi 0 of Illinois, and he was there maki
 inquiries as to the wherea bouts of l regiment from which he insisted
 become separated only the day befol But he could not tell the regiment.
 The government agent traced h back from that point to the latter p of 1865, as an escaped or liberated I tient from either prison or asylu
 wandering instinctively north, reac
 spg the iron regions of northern Mi