The Montgomery advertiser., 1905-02-26

many slaves, brought his company to the rendezvous, the "Cantey Rifles" Captain Cantey had been in the Mexi- can war and better still for his mili- tary claims. he was dangerously wound ed in battle there. No other man of all the twelve companies except one man had ever been an eye witness to battalion drill, Cantey was martial in bearing and was readily chosen Colonel. He was of a South Carolina stock famous for possession of the military instinct. Only two Companies received rifles: the other ten were sup piled with old smooth muskets, carrying a ball effectively seventy five yards. No word of complaint was heard over the quality of the arms or anything else. From first to last, this regiment carried on its rolls 1912 om- cers and men. It is worth while to study the statistics through which its experiences for four years are traced. More than 50 per cent. of the whole were killed in the forty-eight battles 1t engaged in or were wounded; that is. SIS killed and wounded. About 25 per cent. died of disease. Ten per cent. were honorably discharged for physical disability. Seventy men were reported as deserters. Only 159 escaped without wounds, in the forty-eigh sanguinary
 
 comprised the remaining little rem nant' that was surrendered at Appo- mattox.
 This is marvellous military record Nevertheless for the one item, ''deser- tion" there is word of explanation due. President Davis wrote to Gen. eral Lee asking for the reason of assertions from the army defending Petersburg. The reply was, the army nft Tad many of the seventy deserters from the 18th Alabama were included in Lees explanation, we don't know. Possibly the deserters knew, what General Lee himself knew. that at Danville nearby the tobacco warehouses were bursting with army supplies, that at Greens boro, N. C., other large amounts of stores were available, all of which the government failed to use as long as the government lived or Lees army existed.
 In continuation of the statistics of fatalities of the 18th Alabama, I give here a verifying account from other sources. take at random four families of farmers of Alabama, neigh bors. One of the four sent three sol diers to the army, two never returned; another sent the father and four sons. three never came back; the
 
 filled soldiers graves; the last sent six. including two sons-in-law. four came home, but one of these maimed and disabled for life Here we have nineteen volunteers from four families, ten of whom were lost and one per manently united for a mans full duty in life. These families were all of the larger slave holders and. as result of the war, each lost the roof that covered it.
 If we follow up the available evil dences. it is not improbable that we shall discover that Alabama lost in the army and at home, as the direct or indirect result of the war. fifty to sixty thousand white men, women and chill dren and property of more market value than the entire wealth of the State forty years after peace. A dispassionate review of the ques- tions at issue in 1860. leads the author to the judgment that the South had no alternative but a reorganization of the federal government. It is we'll known that many Northern men en- tertained high respect for the move | ment that was put into effect at Mont gomery. Citizens of Montgomery yet | remember the visit of George N. Saun | ders who appeared in the lobbies of the l Confederate Congress claiming to have ! message from Stephen A. Douglas, to the effect that if the Provisional Con- stitution should be formed to favor | the scheme, MT Douglas would see to it that several of the Western border | States united with the Confederacy. The Southern people had little to learn