The Montgomery advertiser., 1901-07-31
AFrERNooN SESSION.

The Convention met pursuant to ad-
 journment, there being 116 delegates present upon the call of the roll.
 Leave of absence was accorded to MT. Stewart of Perry for this evening, tomorrow and next day. 4 The President-The special order Tor this evening will be the consideration of the report of the Committee on Suf- frage and Elections. When the Con- vention adjourned the gentleman rom
 Montgomery had not consumed all or
 his time. Anu
 Mir, Oates--I do not resume for the purpose of consuming much time, but
 find a question or two propounded to
 me, one of them in writing, that l de-
 sire to answer. One question Is wheth-
 CT the amendment if adopted would
 apply to deserters from either army.
 It certainly would. If man was in
 the Onion army and he deserted from
 that army, 1t would apply to him the
 same as if a man deserted from the
 Confederate army. It don't matter
 which army he deserted from it would
 apply to him. Then, there is another
 question that is not understood, the operation and effect. Some say. well if your amendment be adopted that ex. cludes deserters from registering or voting, and that it is contrary to the platform, which declares no white man shall be disfranchised. l say the amendment which I offer does not touch the question of qualification. It simply requires deserters to show their | qualification and does not allow the claim of being a soldier to exempt | them therefrom. That is the whole operation of it. Now, the amendment that I offer would have the enect or not exempting from the duty Of snow ing that they were qualified. in that | they did not desert, or coming in unoer some other clause. In other woross MT. President, l do not want to see clause like this go out in the ConS', tuition when it is certainly susceptible to misconstruction. I hear that ths majority of the Committee expecteo specially to extend this beneiactlon to deserters. hence they used .n's .o,,- guage. but it does not say wno nor
 orabiv served the period of enlistment: If a man goes in as soldier anu | serves through one battle, he honor ably serves, but it don't say continues to do so during the period or ms sn- listment. He may have nonorauiy | served and then taken to the woods the | balance of the war, or, as some uio' eo into the army of the enemy ana serse m that side The amendment oHer ID m encumbrance to the section at all' it I l. Aid not desert such service. If that pc
 the meaning of the Committee not 10
 extend this benefaction to the men wno
 deserted. I find also that some or the | delegates are not well informed apou. the extent of assertions. Every olu man will certainly recall. when l men | tion the fact, that along about the last
 of the war President Davis issued sew
 erai proclamat tions of amnesty ana par
 don to try to get men to come oaeh to their colors. Why one of the great
 oousaa of our failure was the number l of men that took to the woods, but a comparatively small number went 10 | the enemy. The most of them were
 tired of fighting, they wanted to get away from the bullets and the danger.
 If seems to me 1t is a much higher
 compliment to the soldier who served
 faithfully and truly to his colors dur- ing the period of enlistment or all
 through the war. It is a greater com pliment to say we do not thus nisnly l esteem a man who deserted, because
 then if is not honoring the man who
 served faithfully throughout to put hlm on equality with the deserter. No one
 knows better than the' people or the
 wiregrass counties down here wnal | they suffered from deserters. One-hali | to three-fourths of the 1st Florida
 Cavalry Regiment was made up out oi
 deserters from our army, and they were
 raiders and depredators through all
 these counties, and some towns were
 ca aptured and footed. l remember SKID, | persville When they made an assault
 upon Newton in force. and our one armed friend, the President of the
 Board of Convict Inspectors, Judge Carmichael, after he had given his
 right hand to his country in my. oWf
 regiment, was at home, and he anc
 Parson Galloway gathered Jew boy' 1 with guns and hid out and fell upor those men and repulsed them. Thai
 kind of thing was going on dowr i there, citizens were killed. and these
 Florida cavalrymen were regular ma , rauders. It was not honorable servic'
 on their part. They kept that whol' i, section of country in dismay, the peopl'
 absolutely startled and the women ant , | children frightened on accountSof th' depredations of those fellows, made
 up mostly of deserters. There were { , Captain Sanders and a Captain Nor , gan and one Newton who committed
 so many depredations that the citi zens did not endure them down there , and they died violent deaths. Peopl' , there have a feeling recollection O
 1 these things, and to have deserter il arms against them depredating upor , them is- not pleasant to citizen, ant
 | he is apt to have a sharp recollection of them I could bring forward , great many cases, but do not choos , to do It. don't want to consume th'
 time. I tell you if you do not knov the extent of desertion to go to tn
 Adiutant Generals offAe and go ove , the records and count them up, an, , you will find that my statements o this morning is literally trce. that tn , desertiont generally ranged from 10 ! to 200 from a regiment. 1 will say il { justice to one regiment that was il g the brigade in which I served, tn 0 4th Alabama. that perhaps it did no = have quite loo deserters. It was tn . only regiment that had more men killet = in battle than died by disease. In tn e regiment in which I had the honor t serve, with whose record I am perfect
 ly familiar, it was in more battles thai Q any regiment from the State-thirty l nine battles. Its rolls will show ther were in the regiment from first to las r officers and men, 1,649, that there wer :, killed in battle 311 men, wounded 542 r 456 died of disease and 191 deserted t Now, there is the record of as fine
 s regiment as ever fired a gun upon an T battlefield. None surpass 1t. Hay ] you ina glned what those men who sti T survive would feel to see that the Con r stitution of Alabama had without dis s tinction extended to soldiers the righ 9 to be registered, vote and made n g difference between the good soldier an