Wheeling Sunday register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1882-1934, 1901-03-10
TRENCH JOHN D~RILLMASTER

Supposed Dead and Buried-Reap-
pears After Thfrty-nfne Years-Un-
c~ongenfal Step Sons and Wife His
Excuse.
To the Editor of the Register.
Dangerously wounded; supposed
dead and buried at Fair Oaks. on May
31st, 1862, his .relict drew a widows
pension till she died, as she had also re-
ceived the regular minor allowances as
long as her children were thereto enti-
tied under the Pension Laws, after an
absence of thirty-nine years, her hus-
band, French John" or Jean, D
ed at a Wheeling hotel the other even
ing. In, out OF the clustering blasts,
covered with the inauguration snow.
he came into the Mcclure Hotel, looked
around the lobby and espying the wri-
ter, evinced his readiness to chat. His
object in thus seeking out the narra-
tor o became apparent. even before
informal, mutual introductions and ex-
change of names took place.
For, in the long ago, French John"
had kept a fencing school in an East-
ern city; and among the ambitious fen
cibles, the present free lance of the
press had been one of the awkward
squad of his youthful patrons; and
John" searchingly scanning him with
his steel gray eyes. archly lifted his
index digit to his shapely nostril. and
observed: "Zu me i'd zeems ees you one
not of my pupil wis re sword exercise?
You 20 look like re one Of re boys Eat
I did teach in re East before re wars"
And he was right. Forty additional
winters had not dimmed, nor CONCEALED
into dull perception his clear and vivid
recollection of his scholars. Converse
ton naturally ensued; and he told Of
his career which once more corrobo-
rates the ev~er-recurring saw, truth Is
stranger than fiction"
Without entering into uninteresting
personal details, or projecting the mere
recorder of the conversation into awk-
ward, If not undesirable prominence,
French Johns story will not be re-
counted in his W charmingly inyert-
ed phrase, spicy accent. and unctious
Gallie naivete, but will be literally
translated into the more easily legible
vernacular. 1t was short and a real
"unvarnished tale" of suffering, adven-
ture, fortune and misfortune, Yaria-
tons and vi~cissitudes, to which his
sanguine temperament and his elastic
rebound of spirits seemed to accommo-
date and attune themselves as lithely,
n with the supple ease of IN acrobat
in routine gymnastic evolutions on a
rope, bars or trapeZe. The placidfty of
this old veteran was fascinating, as
putting away at one of Wheeling's far
famed stogies he had learned to prize
when a resident of Cincinnati and Bir-
mingham, in the fifties. and reverently
thanking Heaven for his good health
and long life, he said:
ION the first day of the battle of Fair
Oaks. begun May 81, 1862. and conclud-
edit fighting was ever stopped then
on June /, 1862, l was shot down, on
the first as were also many other Off
GERS. among them Col. Rippey, of Pitts
burg. He was dead. ], Captain K. I
SttultI utdQ. we'll. Our DpNb C0dlRRU
front. wheeling the rear guard to the
left field and thus exposing out woun-
ed and dead 70 be trampled upon by
the infantry or cavalry of the John
MES If the latter had changed, front
with us 'Yanks;' but they didn't, See
ing a number OF us alive, for I had
been rendered unconscious by the fall
for a while, although my wound in the
chest vas not trifing, and had become
able to partly rise, they took US prison
ers and l, among others, was finally
shipped to A~ndersonville Prison. On
the very day of my capture. a strange
story, an extraordinary sequence Of
circumstances transpired. A well-built
polite Southern officer desired to swap
clothing with me. We exchanged the
blue for the gray. Next day I learned.
he had been shot in the same field I
had fallen. and that, he was. however,
killed and buried in my uniform By
Union Soldiers, as though he really
were I, Captain X. of Co. XIII call
it, as I do not wish to be legally resur-
rected. And OF course the report went
home. / had been seen to fall. That
/ revived and was taken prisoner the
Union soldiers did not know, much less
that I had exchanged uniforms with a
| Confederate officer, who by a strange
coincidence fell. and remained on the
same field I had been seen to fall on,
| and. as win strike you as clear, in the
hurly burly OF burials In active war
fare. careful examinations are out OF
the question, his uniform indicated my
burial. My step sons and daughters.
and my wife and only daughter,
thought I was really dead and buried.
To explain: had married a widow
with six children. four sons and two
daughters, and had been favored with
only one of my own. Sc was "unegfile
du regiment"-a very daughter OF the
regiment, the pet Of all the soldiers.
the apple Of my eye, when she and
her old mother visited me and lived In
! camp with us. but for a few months
before what seemd to them. a fatal bat
tie to me. My Linotte-you English
call it linnet-my pet name for the
dear, sweet. nimble. spry little seven
year-old loving child-the last saw
her for thirty mine years. Oh. yes;
saw-hunfed her up. Her mafher had
died. Lnnotte Was teaching kchool-
at f 9eIfexe4 She neods* NJ bnxr %
to1c&r nov. ~ duty - bel done Il
4 49, - - 49, -<IS4&- 49, - i