The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1906-06-01
THE TYPICAL OLD SOLDIER
Memories Brought up by a Hand
Shake With Hugh Mccall
The Com. a That Forty Years Has
Snowman Appropriate Epiraph for
His Tomb-The Croatan. Who DIED
i'm His Boots the Man Who Fell
Fighting on Market Square-An In
teresting Talk With q Farmers Wife.

For the Messenger.
On the morning Of the 10th of Nav
l was seated in the meeting OF Camp
No. $50, United Confederate Veterans
OF Cumberland county. when | felt !
tremulous touch on my shoulder; and.
turning about, | saw extended i'll
greeting the worn out wrinkled hand
Of Hugh Mccall, a comrade in the
civil war. In a few minutes | j
lost track of the proceedings Of the
meeting, for my mind had gone back
to the time when | first knew Hugh
McCall-not as he is today, bowed and
broken by age, toll and infirmltias,
but i nthe vigor Of manhood, stalwart
in frame with square shoulders and the
strongly marked face of his Scotch
blood and breed. He enlisted in the
closing months of 1861, in Stars
Light Artillery, made up mostly of
men from Fayetteville, Cumberland
and Robson.
When the company was first form
ed, the Confederate government was
not prepared TO equip it with a light
battery for field service, and it was
ordered to Fort Fisher to man the
heavy guns. The command vent
down to Wilmington by one of the
Cape Fear river steamers, and most of
the men were quartered on the lower
deck, which. like those of other boats
OF that class, was very open and dan
gerOus to the careless passenger.
Those Cumberland and Robson Scotch
began celebrating 80 notable an event
IS their departure to the war by Gib-
eral application to their bottles and
canteens early in the trip; and by
nightfall many were so full" and SO
recklessly happy that Capt. J. B. Starr
thought it best to put a guard around
the outer gunwale of the lower deck,
to save the unWary from going over
board.
AS l stood among the men, some
what at a loss whom to choose for
this service, a big fellow at my elbow
said in his strong Scotch burr: Take
Hughey Mccall, mon, he'll serve you
fine" l think that Hugh had been
enjoying himself, like the rest of the
crowd, with corn liquor or apple
brandy from a sand-hill still, but, as
soon as he was put On duty, he became
a changed man, the stern representa-
tive of military authority, and many
an Obstreperous soldier, deaf to the
mild reasoning of words, felt the ar
gument of a strong arm on the lower
deck.
AS Hugh Mccall was that night, so
he vas all through the war TO the
close, when JOhnston's army surrcn-
dered to Sherman in the, month Of
April, 1S65-shirking no work in
camp or on the field; modest and :e-
thring, but always faithful. The COM
rades who knew him best called him
"Hughey the Silent" and really he
seemed to have little to say for him
self, though l have heard him Lalk,
in his low quick tones, around the
camp fire, about Congressman Lauchlin
Bethune, Duncan Shaw, Col. Murchi-
son., Sheriff Johnson, and other infiu-
entail leaders of thought and action in
western Cumberland. But he was a
better listener than talker, and a
twinkle of the eye or a dry smile on
the rugged face showed that he liked
a good yarn.
BY the way, Johnson was high sher-
if of the county in the fifties. when
the beautiful Mrs. Ann K. Simpson
vas put ON trial, charged with mruder-
g her husband by poisoning with
e -1ic. By some oversight Sheriff
Jo--c o. let the fair defendant slip
Through his fingers, and had to put
out after her, overhauling her at
Charleston, S. c., and bringing her
back to the bar of justice.
Hugh Mccall must be four-score
years old now, Or more. for it has
been nearly forty-fve years since [
first knew him. and then he could not
have been less than 35 years of age.
Nearly all his kith and kin have pass
ed away before him, and most Of his
neighbors, who were wont to gather in
groups under the shade trees around
the country church before service, are
lying beneath the billowed sod Of the
graveyard in rear of that rude house
away in the family burying grounds
IIldU SullE OOt UI1c ullISluCS VI seventy -
First, Little River and Quewhiffle
townships.
Mccall stands now pretty much
alone, like an Old, gnarled r e out in
the open. I doubt if he clingS with
much longing to the world, when he
looks back over the long, uphill way
Of toll and privation W which he
has come, Or that there is much
tremor in his brave soul when he
looks ahead with dim eyes, and sees
how rear he is to the jumping OF
place-for, in the nature of things, IL
can't be long now before he goes down
to the bank, and crosses the river, to
be lost in the deep shadows Of the
Great Valley on the other side.
/ have not been sketching this old
southern soldier as a hero. This has
been but a homely life. made up Of
rough materials, and his has been
but a homely character, without
thought of herOiSm. or kuighuy valor,