Evening Republican, Volume 14, Number 220, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 September 1910 — AROUND CAMP THE FIRE [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

AROUND CAMP THE FIRE

fOLD OF LEE’S SURRENDER Characteristic Btory of Confederate Soldier of Scenes in Army on * Historical Day. The following story of how a member of a North Carolina regiment of cavalry felt at Lee's surrender was told to me some time ago. I will try and place it before my readers in as near the narrator's own words as I can, writes G. B. Sutherland, in an exchange. He says: “After I had enlisted In the army, the first battle we had almost scared me to death, but I gradually took courage and soon was doing some of my best shooting. We

were in a skirt of woods, and we would lie flat on our backs and load our guns, then rise up, fire, and drop on our backs again. It was not long before my comrade next me was lying dead; shot through the head. I became more alarmed than I had previously -been, and stretched myself flat on the ground and was trying to stick my head under the sod, when a shell cut some bark off a tree- near me, and it flew and struck me on the back and I gave an awful groan, thinking my time had come, for I thought I had been shot in the shoulder, but greatly relieved was I when I discovered I was not hurt. I passed through the latter part of the war withouft being hurt badly, and I never was scared any more as badly as I was at the first battle I engaged in. “Thus the war passed, with much Buffering from myself and comrades, until the ninth day of April, 1865, when we were engaged in- battle at Appomattox. We saw the flag of truce, and heard the command to cease firing, then we awaited with bated breath for long hours. All at once we caught sight of a man riding along the line, white flag In hand, and the - cry was echoed, *Lee has surrendered!’ The shout was taken up and passed along the lines, ‘Lee has surrendered! Lee has surrendered!’ Never before was seen such a waving of hats, such shouting and hallooing as was seen upon the field of Lee’s surrender on that historical day. "} s9P’t know how my comrades felt, but as for inyseif T fell as if I had nothing to live for If Lee surrendered. I was not sOrry that the wax was at a close, but I was thinking of Grant, the man who had us in his power, and I felt sure we would all be lodged in prison for the rest of our lives. You can imagine my feelings of horror at the thought of being shut up in a dreary prison for life.

But we were ordered, to stack anna and march to the courthouse, and there, when the treaty of peace was signed, that noble man, General Grant, gave each of us a pass, told us to take our horses, and go home to our, families. ‘‘l felt then, as I do now, that there, never was a more kind and generouß man ever lived than General Grant. “We took our passes and reached! home without much difficulty, subsisting sometimes on corn, parched, that, we dug from out the frozen ground where our horses had been fed- On our way home we came to an old mill where a small boy was grinding his last bushel of com for his old parents, but we took half of it, in spite of his supplications to the contrary, ground it into hominy, and poured war tor In it, and baked It on a flat rock; but I thought I never before pr since tasted anything so delicious. “If I live to be as old as Methuselah, I will never forget the day, and how I felt at Lee’s surrender, and I also can never forget the kindness and generosity of General Grant to the poor soldiers who had caused him so much trouble.”

I Thought l Had Been Shot.