Evening Republican, Volume 15, Number 159, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 July 1911 — AROUNDE THE AMP FER [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

AROUNDE THE AMP FER

UNIQUE REUNION IN KANSAS Drum Corps at Winfield Revives “Spir- . It of 76”— Soldiers Gather From Every State in Union. Kansas is noted for its old soldier; reunions, where attendants are more or less waving the old flag and recounting old tales of glories long past. But Winfield claims to have an oldl soldiers’ reunion unusual in many respects. 1 Winfield’s old soldiers’ reunion is incorporated under the laws of the state of Kansas, with a charter for 50 years. Winfield permits no concessions to be sold. The reunion is supported by contributions from the citizens. There are no merry-go-rounds, no shooting galleries, no squeaking balloons, no riding whips, no confetti on the grounds of the old soldiers’ reunion in Winfield. The week is entirely given over to recalling reminiscences of valor and confessing recollections of fear by the soldiers at the camp meetings, held each morning In the auditorium at Island Park, to listening to good old war songs and mod-

ern music by the best band in Kansas, and to speeches by Kansas’ silver tongued orators. The reunion of this year has been the most successful of any meeting held dp to date, and several remarkable reunions were attendant upon it. Soldiers were gathered from practically every state In the Union, to the number of 325 altogether, while 400 soldiers* wives and widows and daughters were registered. One hundred and twenty-six tents were fitted up with all housekeeping appliances, occupied by old soldiers, their wives, their sons and daughters and grandchildren. The meeting brought together many family reunions as well as not a few old soldiers who* had fought side ,by side during the war and had not met since. A feature which attracted greatest attention and warm praise and aroused patriotic springs long dormant, was the Douglas drum corps. Seven drummers and filers who played their Instruments all through the Civil war, in different regiments and from different states, chanced at the close of the war to settle in Butler county, adjoining Cowley county on the north. These men discovered years ago each other’s, occupations during the war and formed the Douglass Drum Corps. As much time as these men can spare from their prosperous farms they devote to playing at soldiers* reunions. A. P. Douthitt of Cowley county and William Hill, lifer of the drum corps of Butler county, have lived within twenty-five miles of one another for 30 years. They were acquainted and yet this reunion was the occasion of developing the following between them for the first time. Douthitt was on the camping ground when Hill arrived. He chanced to ask HUI to what regiment he belonged. “To the Second Wisconsin,” replied Hill. | "Did you ever happen to know a drummer in that regiment named Hershal Smalley?” inquired Mr. Douthitt. "Well, I should smile,” Hill replied. "He drummed with me all through the war. He was a prisoner at Andersonville, and I lost him.” - "You did?” queried Douthitt "Weß, I found him. I was taken prisoner at Chickamauga. In Andersonville for 17 months Smalley and I slept under the same blanket every night. He got smallpox and I never took it” ’’And it was my fife you heard when we fellows came to release you,” Hilt rejoined. Such incidents were frequent during the reunion. Crops were forgotten; the excellence of the wheat; the failure of the corn; the relative merits of millet and timothy; the superiority of alfalfa over prairie hay, were not mentioned. Nothing was discussed but wartime adventures, trials and occasional pleasures. Closer friendships were formed and ties drawn nearer through the reminiscences which, except for this model reunion, would never have been related.

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