The San Francisco call., 1908-10-11
THE STIRRING LIFE STORY OF THE NAN
WHO, BACKED ONLY BY HIS SIMPLE
PATRIOTISM, HAS REPEATEDLY DIS
PFRSED RABID ANARCHIST MEETINGS IN
SAN FRANCISC

ready to light with humor than not.
form-and black felt hat of the shape
you see General Grant wearing in some
war portraits
He was born in North Carolina and
both his grandfathers had been slave
owners His father was an overseer.
The family eventually went west to
Missouri. and young Trogden became
a cabin boy on a Mississippi river
steamer. Those were the days of splen-
did river boats, with gilded saloons,
in which planters traveled-the aris-
tocracy of a prosperous south. Trog-
den. the cabin boy. saw them and
heard them discussing the threatened
made his grandfathers rich. which had
supported his father. But he had got
ideas stronger than inherited beliefs,
and when political argument sprang
up among the deck hands he used to
talk hotly for Abraham Lincoln-so
hotly that those on the boat in time
dubbed him Abe Lincoln"
4AOSt MClt ue1NS VI SNA1ALAC0 AtN4
ings. Politics meant much; particu
larly did it mean much to this boy,
shouting northern doctrine on the deck
Of a Mississippi river steamer tied to
a Louisiana levee. He came to take
his principles seriously
He Cheered for Lincoln
That is the reason he did what he
did in New Orleans the day Louisiana
left the union. He was on Canal street.
Ten thousand people were jammed
around the custom house, and men were
hauling down the nag. The 10000. who
cheered and between cheers talked ex-
citedly in groups of what this meant.
were firm in the belief that they were
right, and what they believed they
were ready to back up with their lives.
Their minds were pretty we'll keyed
up and their nerves were tense 1t
was the eve of a conflict where hun
dreds of thousands died gladly for
their ideas and ideals. And here. on
Canal street in New Orleans was about
the last place in the world at this
particular time for getting up an argu-
ment.
Young Trogden hurrahed for Abe
Lincoln. He also remarked that some
of those present would live to see the
day when they would kneel to the flag
which they had desec~ated. He had
got to taking things to heart when
it came to questions of union or seces-
sion. Going up the river on his steam
er, he had to hide a good part of the
time to escape violence at the hands of
people who knew his principles
In st. Louis he enlisted in the Eighth
Missouri. The history of what he did
during the next FIVE years is written
on his discharge It is an epic, that
discharge paper, with it's long list of
bloody battles, of deaths braved and of
deeds which are glorious. It tells of
Shiloh of Vicksburg and of Sherman's
march to the sea And it tells of two
score other battles. Tried and con-
demned to DEATH" and Condemned to
be shot" it announces tersely. Some of
the details of these things explain why
Howell c. Trogden came to cherish his
ideals Of patriotism until he is ready to
fight for the flag in his old age, while
younger generation stands by, half
puzzled, half tolerant
Near Ripley, Miss, he was captured
the first time, inside the enemy's lines.
He was carrying dispatches. That is
to say. he had been detailed to steal
through several thousand confederate
troops with message to the union
general, who was established beyond
them He was caught in patch of
woods at dusk wearing a rebel uni
form The two men who captured him
took him TO headquarters, and General
Forrest sent him to General Bragg.
Bragg sentenced him to be shot the
next morning. BY the merest chance
he escaped this fate He was sent to
prison at Mobile He went from one