The National tribune., 1902-04-03
STONEMAN'S SURRENDER.
Recollections OF an oficer Who Carried tht
Flag Of Truce.

Flag of Truce.
EDITOR NATIONAL TRIBUNE: / wish to
reply to a communication by S. D. Toby,
of Oakland. Iowa.
l will say that I can inform you in re-
gard to the 9th Ind Battery, command
ed by Capt. Hardy, It was with us on the
Stoneman raid and did good work. Co.
d, 9th Ind. Cay, and Co. X, of the same
regiment, weresthe last to leave the field.
L was with my company, in command,
Lieut. Anderson in command of Co. X.
We were lying behind fence, on top of
a hill. All the command had orders to
/ fall back. Gen. Stoneman, Maj. Keough
/ tthe only member of his staff in sight and
I Col. L. III. Butler, of our regiment, were
on their horses. just behind us, and under
/ the hill, just out of the range of the shells.
| In our front was coming a double line Of
+ Confederate skirmishers, with three col
umns in sight, with Il battery bearing on
our little command. They were knocking
! the rails off the fence, and several men had
! been killed, when | turned to Gen. Stone
man and asked him if he was going to
| leave US there to he ali slaughtered. He
said: Hold on 4 few minutes, until Capt.
! Hardy's Battery comes up | looked
around and saw the battery coming on a
run just behind us and coming through
a cut in the hill. Hardy ran around the
! hill and got in full view of the rebel skir-
mishers, and opened crOss-ire on them,
when they broke and. got out of the way
as fast as they could. At that time Il
! shot or shell came near us, and | looked
! back, and found it had entered Gen. Stone
mans horses side just behind his leg and
gone through. The horse sank down and
the General got off and said: My poor
Beauregard is killed." and the tears start
ed in his eyes. This horse WAS presented
to him before the war by Beaurcgard.
Gen. Stoncman then gave us orders to
fall back to the next hill, and we lost no
time in starting. When | got to where
our horses were the boys mounted and
! left without waiting for further orders |
was the last to mount. | now came to
the man that Comrade TObey speaks of.
! lie was our company blacksmith, John
Smaltz. He was mounted on mule. A
round shot had entered the breast Of the
mule and taken off Johns left leg. He
fell to the ground, and asked me if | was
going to leave him. | stopped the bat
terry, and we got John on The caisson; but
before he got on he said the leg would be
of no further use to him, and he took
out his knife and cut it off. They left
with him on the caisson. He was taken
to Sunshine Church, short distance
away, and died there.
We fell back to the next hill. Capt.
Hardy was already there with his bat
terry, and got out some files to plug the
guns, when Gen. Stoneman ordered him
not to do so. What his reason was he
perhaps knew. / don't. But | do know
that Capt. Hardy wept, and great tears
ran down his checks. was detailed, with
Maj. English, Of the 18th KY, also Lieut..
Summerby, of a Kentucky regiment, to
carry in the flag of truce. Just how Eng
lish and Summerby happened to be there,
when their command was miles away, per-
haps they. can tell. Well, we had a big
time before we got back to the command.
We were ordered to hold the flag of truce
as long as we could before returning, in
order to let Stonemans command get
away. Our regiment was held to hold
them in check, while the balance of the
command was ordered to get away. When
we came in sight the Confederate skir-
mishers' columns were ordered to halt.
On looking away to Sthe right We could
see General and staff coming as hard
as their horses could carry them. lie
came up and wanted to know what we
wanted. We told him we wanted to sur
render who Is the flag from?' We told
him, From Mai.-Gen. Stoneman." He
said: rs MajaGen.5 Stoneman there in
person" We told him Yes" He asked
What are your terms? Under the new
cartel" He said: II accept of the
terms" About that time looked across
the field and saw another officer coming,
with his staff of 15'or 20 men. He came
up and asked US about the same ques-
tions, and seemed surprised that they
had captured a Major General. He also
accepted our terms. On looking away to
our left, we saw another officer coming
with his staff. He came up, and wanted
to know what the flag meant, and was
told. He said he also accepted our terms,
and remarked that we go back and inform
our commanding officer to march his COM
mand to yonder hill and deposit their
arms. That made me smile; in fact |
laughed out. He asked me what tickled |
me. We had only part of one regiment !
to surrender. One of the staff asked me
how many batteries we had. | told him |
we had but two pieces of the 9th Ind |
Battery. He said he didn't ask me for a
lie. Another said if that was all the guns |
we had that they had done some mighty |
good work in killing lots Of their men. BY |
this time the skirmish line kept coming |
up closer, and a number of men and ofi- |
GERS came up. They belonged to the 4th |
Ky. (rebeD, while English belonged to the
4th Ky. HederaD. They recognized Eng
lish and Summerby. Both regiments were
raised in Louisville. This, of course, kept
US longer, as they were asking all kinds of
questions about home, etc. At last, the
first General said we would now go back,
and he would accept or receive the sur
render. We started. When the last Gen
eral who had come up came dashing up
alongside the first officer and told him to
return to his command, as he was the
ranking officer, and he would go and re-
ceive the surrender. They had few hot
words, but the last one came with us, and
when we got to where the command was
we found that the ,Johnnies had come up
on the other side and had robbed the boys
Of everything they had-hOrses, guns,
money, blankets, and everything So the
when we got back was n tame
lfair.-W. w. ANGEL, First Lieutenant,
Go. ID, 9th Ind. Cav, BlufftOn, Ind.
The Abyssinian Forgives