The Savannah morning news., 1904-02-14
SIDNEY HERBERTS LETTER
Facts of Interest to Confederate and Union
Veterans and Others

md Others.
duty in the Adjutant Generals office.
Capt. Manly B. Curry of Macon is pay
master of Department of the Gulf.
Capt Clarence c. Williams is in the
Ordnance Department. Capt. Basil o.
LenoiEa is in the Signal Corps and DR..
Park Howell is assistant surgeon, with
rank of first lieutenant.
The announcement of the engagement
of Lieut." Rodman, U. S. N, to Miss
Terry, is somewhat misleading, as Rod
man is simply an assistant surgeon,
with the rank of lieutenant, and not a
fighting man." = = The Gate City
Guard of Atlanta is a good deal of a
humbug as a purely military organ
iZation. The Constitution says: 1T
| is the oldest military organization in
this section of the country. 1t was
organized in 1856" The words. this
section of the country" cover the whole
state. and under this rule the claim is
absurd. Savannah has several gray
haired military companies twice as old
as the Gate City Guard, which has al
ways been blower of it's own horn. "
= The United Service magazine, a
monthly review of military and naval
affairs, published by L. R. Hamersly,
Jr., No. 1856. Fifth avenue, New York,
comes out for February full of attrac-
tive military and naval articles. Ad-
miral Porter and Gen. Garfield are the
subjects of two excellent papers, while
Maj. Cullom writes of the Marine
Corps and Rear Admiral Stevens of the
battle of Port Royal. Our Patriotic
Airs" is the title of an interesting
sketch by Naval Veteran Ben. F. Stew
ems. A photo engraving is given of
Paymaster H. E. Biscoe, U. S. N, a
star graduate of the Virginia Military
Institute.
1 was surprised to see it stated in the
Morning News that Mrs. Annie Cham
bers Ketchum, just deceased, was the
author Of the famous song. THE Bon
ME Blue Flag" That song was not
only written but sung on the stage by
Actor Harry Mccarthy, who became
Private Mccarthy of the Confederate
army. Mrs. Ketchum did write song.
the last line of which was taken from
Mccarthy s-"The Bonnie Blue Flag
That Bears a Single Star" This bad
practice has caused much confusion in
authorship. and called forth just accu-
sations of plagiarism. The last line
of Dan Emmet's Dixie has been used,
without due credit, in several songs
sung to the same time. And only re-
Gently l had occasion to call the at
tention of Scribner's magazine to a
poem in it, by Miss Josephine Daskam,
in which she used. without due credit
the last line in Gen. McCallam's well
known poem, The Mill Will Never
Grind With the Water That Has Pass
ed" There are also many poems, some
treating of ships upon the sea, and
others about gathering leaves, in nearly
all of which the same ideas are present.
ed, and in some cases the same words
used, as in the Bonnie Blue Flag" line
which Mrs. ketchum took from Nc
Carthy's song.
When the schoolmaster was abroad
in the land he failed to visit San Fran
CISCO Cal, and the educated people
of that city are deeply mortified at the
bad spelling on the Dewey monument.
Several eminent men were connected
with the monument enterprise, yet all
seemed to have bad spells" And now
the inscription, cut deep in the gran
lite, read, PHILIPPINE" and "McCul-
lough,' when they should be Philip
pine" and "McCulloch." Bad as this
is, and it is bad enough, it is simply a
repetition of the careless manner in
which so-called history and biography
is being written and printed in this
fast age. People are in too much of
hurry to think properly or to exam
inc their work to see if it has errors
or defects to be corrected or remedied.
Our war narratives bristle with err
rors, and many of the official reports
are full of errors. These letters have
in view the correction of such errors
and are not written to criticise or dis
cuss, at length, the writers or their
mistakes. l often censure, and very
properly, too, the careless and hasty
manner in which important events and
distinguished people are referred to
even in so-called histories.
In the death of Col. A. B. Montgom-
cry of Rome, 1 mourn the loss of an
old and highly esteemed friend. He
was a brother of Associate Justice
Montgomery of the Georgia Supreme
Court, who died a few years ago in
Augusta, and an Uncle, 1 think of
the late Gen. William Montgomery
Gardner, U. S. A. and c. S. A. Col.
Montgomery was an accomplished Of
ficer of fine soldierly bearing, and
served in the Third United States Ar
tillery as a second lieutenant from
June %, 1857, to Aug. 81, when he was
transferred to the Fourth Artillery,
from which he resigned on March 8.
1861, to enter the Confederate service
as major of the Third Georgia Infan-
try, Col. Ambrose r. Wright of Au-
gusta commanding. There were sew
eral changes after the promotion of
Col. W., and think Maj. Montgomery
finally became colonel of the regiment.
In my last Sundays letter 1
referred to Gen. Kruger as colonel of
the Eighteenth United States Infan-
try, although at the time he was act
ing as military governor" of Georgia
QS6S) he was colonel of the Thirty
third Infantry. 1 chose the former