The Chronicle-star combined with the Moss Point advertiser., 1946-08-09

out on Ship Island. This fact
seemed amazing to us. for so far
as we know it is a, forgotten in
| cident Of history along the Gulf
Cost. However, in a recent IS
sue OF Time magazine there is a
| review Of a book on the Civil
War Which was written by a
young Yankee soldier and novelist
who has been dead these MANY
years. The book has recently
been published from a manuscript
left in the keeping of its fam
lily, aid the reviewer in Time
magazine finds that it has cap
tured IN words the timeless "ar-
my magic" which soldiers g-ipe
and cuss about while actually in
service, but which they remember
all OF their lives, and re-live for
themselves and for others, for any
and al who, will listen to them
| when they have at last become
| old men, sitting by the proven
biaf flreside. An interesting pass
age in The review Of this book re-
fers to the young authors land
ing on Snip Island with a COM
pahy or two of Yankee soldiers
on their way to take the port of
New Orleans. He describes the
battle against the mosquitoes, and
the Inconvenience Of finding them.
selves on the island with tents
whose poles and pegs had been
left on the docks OF Boston by a
forgetful supply sergeant.
In a second book that we were
reading recently, a history of the
Civil War. there is q reference to
a battle fought on Ship Island.
probably before the landing of
the Yankee companies refer ed
to above. This battle was fought
betw cen several attacking Yam
kee companies and a Confederate
defending force. The Confederates
were overwhelmed and taken pris-
oner. The casualties in the fight
ing We're relatively heavy.
These forgotten bits of histo-
~ stir the imagination. There are
some people whose thoughts are
ever conscious of the passage of
time, and of things long ago and
forgotten, and the writer of this
column Is one of these. We are
ever conscious that we walk TODAY
in the footsteps of other people
who trod this path ahead of us
In other ages. In the pine for
ests of the coast we are mind
fuI that centuries ago Indian hun
tiers came through the same
woods, and when we fish by the
banks or rivers and bayous we
remember that their n o and
dugouts Slipped across the same
fippling water, long ago, and that
their eyes too, fell upon these
reeds and water flowers. Not the
same flowers, of course, but GER
taihly the same seed-parents of
these marginal rushes, removed by
thousands of plant generations
and countless Towering summers
and bleak winters. And Just as
the Indians have come this way
ana Vanished into the past, and
the Spanish conquistadores after
them, and the French explorers.
the "couriers du bois" as they
were called. so we too shall prob
ably someday be a vanished peo-
pie. Some future race will see
fragments of our life here. a rail
way embankment, a shrimp trawl
preserved in the thick mud of the
river bottom; and they will Won
der what kind of folks we were.
and what We were up to. The un.
spoken answer of time shall be
that we were "just people"-ba-
sically very little different from
those who came before us. and
probably little different from
those Who will come behind.
Probably sometime this sum
mer we wifi get a chance to get
out to the islands on a boat and
y we find ourselves on Ship Is
land We shall look around for
traces of the soldier bows of
eighty years ago Who fought the
mosquitoes, and eussed their for
getful sergeant; who swan in the
surf and answered chow call as
the SIM set westward over the
boundiess marshlands of louisa
ma. We shall remember that their
alien Boston Irish accents. their
cries and laughter and their oaths.
rang out in the pine woods of
as islands where the Indian fish
ermen and the Frenchmen had
been before them.
Perhaps somewhere in New
England one of these Union SOL
diers is still alive, an old man
sitting in a chair, the flame of
life burning low, and near ex-
tinction. And even today some
fading. fragmentary memory of
the island will cross his mind.
But the battle which he and his
companions fought as Yankee
boys on a strange Mississippi is
land mas vanished into the mists
If the past, and is forgotten now