The herald and news. [volume] (Newberry S.C.) 1903-1937, 1911-07-11


never had the opportunity We con-
graduated Johnnie and he smiled and
cut the horses, but being accustomed
to hear Johnnie praised they moved
no faster.
In leaving Petersburg, on Washing
ton street we passed by st. Pauls Epls-
copal church, where Gen. R. f. Lee
was on a cold, bleak Sunday in Decem-
Der, 1864, when I delivered a dispatch
to him after riding fifty miles from
Stoney Creek to deliver it. I first
went to his headquarters, but was told
that he was at church. I never saw
him after that. In my ragged gray
clothes T handed the papers to him,
and he smiled and bowed as though
I was a great man as he was. I was
embarrassed. I almost felt like walk
ing backwards out of the church to
keep the clergyman from seeing my
nakedness. I only looked presentable
when on horseback.
We went seven miles below Peters,
burg to Borgess. Mill, where the battle
was fought on cold, rainy day, to-
wards the end of October, 1864. Hamp-
toms cavalry was guarding the right
wing of Lees army, between Borgess.
Mill, on Hatcher's Run, and the Ro-
wanty. An indescribable melancholy,
which hangs over an army when on
the eve of battle, betokened that some
thing of a grave and serious character
would usher the 9th of October out.
It was the autumn time. The glorious
forests of old Virginia for weeks back
had given under their foliage resting
place for cavalrymen, infantrymen
and artil1erymen. Headquarters of
generals had been located near farm
houses or some old colonial home"
full of the traditions of the past, so
fraught with the spirit of ancient and
present hospitality. It was in the au-
tumn time, when leaves gently fall and
cover oft in many places the graves
of the unnumbered and unlettered gal
liant dead. The oak, the hickory and
the elm had each in turn shed leaves;
all delicate and tender plants hid
themselves away until the season came
around once again to welcome them to
sunlight and to shade. The change of
the season was upon US; dull, dreary
days of danger and death rested upon
the earth The campaign Of short
time before had resulted in sending
Gen. Phil Sheridan and Gen. Wilson
| to cover. They had been roughly han
died by the cavalry commanded by
Gen. Wade Hampton, and sought shell
ter under the protection Of Gen. .. S.
Grant and his superb army, we'll
equipped, and representing all branch
es of a magnificent army of men and
horses, carbines and improved rifles.
Sabres, too, glittered along his rifed
guns he had near at hand to shell
, towns, 10 hurl into advancing columns
or to cast over the tops of trees into
the Confederate lines. The fatal shell,
ON leaving the gun, cast a circle or
wreath of white smoke behind it, that
, we might trace thereby the death mis-
sion entrusted to it. It was a sturdy
set of mer, seemingly without num-
bers, and they came
Like the wolf on the fold,
And his cohorts were cleaning in pur-
pie and gold,
And the sheen of their spears was like
stars on the sea,
When the blue wave rolls nightly on
deep Galilee."
Just at daylight on the morning OF
the 9th of October, 1854, the battle
began.
Victor Hugo says: "A certain
amount of tempest is always with a
battle. Every historian traces to some
extent the lineament that pleases him
in the hurlyburly. What is battle!
An oscillation, the immobility Of a
mathematical plan to express a min
ute and not a day. To paint a battle
those powerful painters who have
chaos in their pencils are needed
Let us add that there is always GER
tain moment in which the battle de-
generates into a combat, is particular
lied and broken up into countless d.
tail facts. The historian in such a
; case has the evident right to sum up
He. can only catch the principal out