Democratic Sentinel, Volume 8, Number 13, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 April 1884 — Hampton in a Tight Place. [ARTICLE]

Hampton in a Tight Place.

A middle-aged man approached Gen. Hampton and asked Ins influence in pressing a claim before the Military Committee of the Senate. The stranger then said: “ General, lam glad to see you again. You do not recognize me, but you personally made a prisoner of me during the war. ” Comparing notes, Hampton found out that it was a fact, and recalled the circtimstances. He was reconnoitering one night, and missed his way. Around him burned many more camp-fires than he had left behind him. Entering a house, he discovered that he had strayed into the enemy's lines. A few soldiers were seated at a table, and abruptly addressing them as if a superior officer of their own army, he asked who they were and what they were doing there. One man spoke up and replied: “We belong to the Eighth New York Regiment, and Gen. , Warren sent us to get ■ milk. ” Hampton felt that all of his nerve, and address would be required to extricate himself from this dangerous position. He reached for his pistol, held it along his thigh, and, on leaving the house, commanded the man who had spoken to him to follow. He did so. Hampton mounted his horse and called the man to him. Bending down to the Federal soldier’s ear, he whispered : “I have a pistol aimed at your head and will shoot you if any alarm is made.” The surprised soldier whispered: “Don’t shoot. I surrender.” Hampton bade him move on just ahead of his horse, and so brought him into the Confederate camp. It was this man who, after more than twenty years, met his captor and asked a favor of him, as a Senator, that he was more than willing to grant. It was a strange and romantic coincidence in the returning cycles of time. —Augusta Chronicle.