Edgefield advertiser. [volume] (Edgefield, S.C.) 1836-current, 1914-07-29

4 Clty.
We consider ourselves fortunate
to have as closer neighhor thai
Esplendid young gentleman Mr.
Bettis Bouknight. He has rented
Pine Home where he will carry on
/, scientific farming for the next
several years.
Opening Of 1865, Came Gloomy
Outlook.
The opening of the year 1865
lEiooked gloomy for the Confederacy.
THE hopes of foreign Intervention
!Ehad long since been looked upon as
II ! delusion, while our maritime pow.
/ ler had been swept from the high
seas. Ali ports, with the exception
i.of Charleston, S. G., and Whining.
fton, N. C., were now in the hands
lof the Federals. Fort Fisher the
tGibraltar of she South, that guard
Fed tie inlet of Cape Fear River,
was taken by land and naval forces.
The year before the Alabama" f."
Fan iron.clad of the Confederstes,
lSwas sunk off the coast of France:
Then followed the "Albemarle"
and the Florida. The raw
Tennessee" had to strike our col
Tors on the 5th of August, in Mo-
Ibile Bay. But Lees grim veterans
Hay in their trenches still, only about
tss, 900 had been holdine in check
an army of $4,000 we'll fed and
we'll equipped, for months. 1t is
useless for me to undertake to tell
What Lees army endured in the
11renches at Petersburg from July
1854 until April 1865. Tongue
lcannot tell it, pen cannot write 1t,
1.-The mind of man cannot grasp it,
iElnless he had been there as a wit
fness, and there is no painters brush
Ethat could paint it. Army of
iENorthern Virginia, old Soldiers OF
dIlee, who fought beside your cap.
tain until your frames were wasted
and you were truly his "Wretched
S0nes,n Sou-are greater to me In
I'vour wretchedness, more splendid
in you. rags, than the Old Guard
of Napoleon or the three hundred
Of Thermopylae. Neither famine
nor nakedness. nor suffering could
break your spirit. You wer, batter
I'd and half starved. your forms
we're war-worn, but you still had
faith in Lee, and the great cause
which you bore aloft on the points
If your bayonets. Yo. did not
shrink in the last hour-the hour OF
.upreme trial. You went to follow
lee to the last, and die with your
ar-harness on. If you had ever
doubted the result you had resolved
t least on one thing to clutch the
.nusket to the end and die in har,
less. Is that extravaganza, and Is
his picture of the great Army OF
Northern Virginia over drawa:
Did they or did they not fight u
he end, and to the last ditch? An.
swer again, Cold Harbor, Spottsyl
yania, Charles City, every spot
,round Petersburg, when they
closed in photographic with the
swarming enemy. Answer; winter
Of 1864 bleak spring Of 1865, terri
lie days OF the great retreat, when,
hunted down and driven to bay like
Wild animals, they fought from
Five Forks to Appomattox Court
House-fought, staggering, stafv
ing and falling, but defiant to the
last. Bearded men were seen te
weep on the ninth day of Aprl
1865: but it was when they heard
that their mighty chief had sur
rendered which wrung their hearts,
and brought tears to grim faces
The crater, with its $4,000
pounds of powder, did not scare
them; as soon as the men and guns
that were blown into the air tel
back, these same gray veterans
swarmed like bees to the. mouth o.
. the crater and filled it with yankee:
, and negroes. You may speak D
the dreadful horrors of war. Sher
man was right when he said Wa
. is hell" The Crater" Gran
thought he would up our lines
cross over through the crater, bu
not so. 1t turned to be death
trap for the Federals; there loss ac
| cording to their own report wa
= between five and six thousand
The Confederate loss was abou
r twelve hundred all told. The Con
, federales captured nineteen battl
flags in and about the crater