Pine Bluff daily graphic., 1907-09-11

that was the "hloody angle at Spottsylvania. The ground Nd cur- cred with the dead and woundet a.'a the blood of the ,,lue and tha .Yir mingled together Nl,a Nirgina'5 >G,'.
 Late ill the afternoon a Federal nj eer appeared in ou' front W5rA ! liag C truce. He stepped gracefully upoH the works, and wi d CheS ?. .fi'i ,l2n how, asked. "Genl1 1etlCn ala @cu >Ur~ rendPr2" The office Ii fnlHmdud of
 that immediate point replied. Of Icourse not: we have no idea of sur Irendering. Billie Compton. a class mate of the writer. was sitting down
 ill the mud resting. with his gun be- tween his knees. He looked up at the
 Federal officer and expressed his dis gust by saying. You must be a d--n fool.' The officer then said, Well, neither do l surrender" We at once divined his purpose, which was to ascertain our strength. We had only thin line and could not allow him to return to his own lines and report our weakness. He was ordered to surrender and upon again refusing was shot as he was returning to Grants lines When shot he made another graceful bow and fell lDan his face. dead. He was a gaiIant fel-
 low and we were all sorry to see him sacrifice himself to duty as he saw it. But such is war As Gen. Sherman said, War is he'll" Here we stood hours without intermission save the few moments just related. Our men fired on an average of one hundred and fifty shots each. which beats any known record for muzzle loading guns. Our men were so exhausted that their eyeballs seemed to have re- ceded a half inch back in their sock
 cts But grim determination was strongly written upon every powder begrimed face. No wonder that Gen. Grant said that the only way to de- feat such soldiers was to overwhelm and crush them by superior num- berS. It was at this point that an oak tree. eighteen inches in diameter, standing in an angle of the works, was absolutely clipped in two and cut down by minnie balls, not a shell having struck it. It fell just before
 ,l,o l+l, of ,n body is now in the Smithsonian h.
 stitute in Washington. The next morning. the 18th, Grant withdrew his forces from our front and con- tinued his flank movement to the left. and the battle of Spottsylvania Court
 House. and the Bloody Angle was handed down to history. \ Northern historian. Gen. Horace Porter, states
 that at Spottsylvania Court House
 Grant broke Lees center and the latter made five unsuccessful at tempts to repair the break am able to state from personal observation and participation that Lee made only
 
 that attempt was entirely successful. Had Lee been unable to re-eStablisn his lines Grant could have thrown tit,y thousand men through the gap, and with an unobs1ructed road to Richmond that city would have fallen .n;o his hands in about three days. and Lees army. cut off, would have had to surrender at once. There is sometimes a wide difference between ] alleged historical statements and the
 actual facts of true and unbiased his tory. There is really no comparison
 between Grant and Lee as military
 chieftans. Sectional loyalty will re- quire the Northern writers, despite the great disparity of men and re- sources, to magnify the ability of Gen. Grant but the impartial histor- ian of the future will do justice to the majestic Lee, who stands without peer. the most sublime, the grand est. the loftiest character in all his tory.