The Montgomery advertiser., 1908-06-03

his camp by chance. His old instinct | told him the truth and ne whispered 1 to his wife that they were regulars. and all was lost Rapidly he told his plan; the troopers deployed and with | levelled carbines. He would (with | the old West Point trick) seize the foot
 of the nearest rider, hurl him from | saddle and vault into 1t. flying for lib- | erty, or for quick death into the dense wood-thence, alone, to the Mississippi. ] As he spoke. he grasped his pistol. creeping stealthily to the nearest
 horseman's side. Already. in the damp
 morning, Mrs. Davis had thrown about his shoulders the light. sleeveless rag Ian from her own shoulders. While he
 spoke the last words. she threw about
 his neck the small. square shawl she
 wore.
 But it was too late for the West
 Point trick, or for any escape The destined object of attack wheeled his carbine. and a dozen more centered on the one man, as locks clicked. With a scream. the wife threw herself be- tween him and their muzzles, and the end had come.
 But. fin creeping up to the trooper in the dim light the raglan and the shawl had both fallen from the hus- bands shoulders. yards away from the spot where he was seized.
 
 even known to exist in words, General Ferguson was interviewed upon tho disguise story. and so was Gen. T. K Irwin, his Adjutant-General who had proffered convoy to the river. The former told ip detail the self-sarno facts that MT. Davis wrote later. Shown to Irwin, he said: My general has told all. know 1t to be true, have no more to say after his state ment."
 So far as I know. or have heard, no reputable Federal officer who was present ever-either voluntarily, or oth herwise, made statement over his own signature. or viva voce, to dis prove what Mir. Davis and General Ferguson both told coldIy, after lapse of years and in direct personal state ment.
 History made itself rapidly in those days of hurry and hatred. horror and vengeance thirst. when the Booth pistol echo maddened the brains of q nation and wrote it's accusations and It's news notes in letters of blood.
 As for the shawl. it's biography ie told by Mrs. Ciem Clay Clopton. with all per persifiage on dress subjects In her book. describing the trip of the prisoners to Fort Monroe, on the Will liam Clyde. she tells that she and Mrs Davis had two shawls so exactly alike that neither knew her own. One of these his wife had thrown about MT. Davis's shoulders. She had piclSaa it up, when dropped unheeded by him Both ladies had these shawls on the voyage to prison.
 Mrs. Clay's Diary was written whtAe she was at sea, a guarded prisoner os United States ship, and precluded from possibility of newspapers and fha wild stories fiIiing superheafad Northern press as to Mr. Davis's ''dia- guise." She gives dates facts, and names. Her story has been Tn fvne for years. It is stil1 uncontrovarted.
 When anchored on Fortress Monroe (the diary tells) two women were sent aboard the "Clyde" to search fha uar- sons of the female prisoners, for tren- sonable papers. Then Lieutenant Hud- son of the guard, demanded of Mrs. Davis her shawl. as proof against hef husband! She demurred; but 1t beinw the only wrap she had. Mrs. Clay took her own duplicate shawl, folded it with Mrs. Davis's and gave them both foNs the officer. Later, Mrs. Clay's shawl was returned; a maid of Mrs. Davis having identified hers; and that is the shawl. formerly exhibited In Washing- ton and recently "exhumed from dis used drawer fin the War Department. z
 Few people noted its earlier exhfbf- tion, along with the spurs, Sleeveless raglan. etc. Nobody, North or South, cared rush whether they had been refound or not. True. the cure-ali of ills, mental. or moral. has passed the episode.
 The matter Is a trivial one fin itself; but am not riding at windmiiIs of merely as sport. It reflects --as 1t was originally invented to do--- upon the entire character and method of the man who stood a whole nations upon his ,defenceless head without one whimper. ".
 It chanced to be my lot=-a dozen years ago. when my "Crag Nests TO- nance of Sheridan's ride was issued--- to prick another bubble. inflated with gas of adulation. My reply to General Forsyths remark able 'Me and Phil" article. In Harper's was printed in The Phiia- delphla Times. and widely copied North and South. Neither the General nor the press ever disputed it's truth.
 find it fitting, on thls one hun- iredth anniversary of MT Davfs's birth to spit another error; and, to all his- tory, vastly more important one.