Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 34, Number 78, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 May 1902 — The Hero’s Grave. [ARTICLE]

The Hero’s Grave.

*T don’t reckon as we could find it at this late day, nohow.” . “Find w-hat. Uncle Ted?” “Jimmy Dare's grave. Jimmy Dare, the hero o’ Shiloh—one o’ the heroes.” “Who was he? What did he do? Tell me all about him.” “Why, la me! What’s such’ lads ns you know about war and so on. ’Twas in your father’s time —yes, in your grandfather’s, even. “You see, Jimmy an’ me were chums from boyhood, Sn’ I reckon ’bout the only thing we ever .did differ in was our sweethearts: ah*when the war broke out we was among the fust volunteers from our section, jined the same company, and marched days an’ days together, hungry sometimes, but oftener tired an’ sleepy. Oh, me, but war is dreadful! Jimmy never got back to the old home nor to his lassie, Nettie Ray; and here I am without my good right arm —a sleeve empty, an’ a crippled leg besides; la. la—but we fought In a glorious cause, an' we come out victors.” “But Jimmy. Uncle Ted?” “Jimmy? Why, that’s who I’m a talkin’ ’bout. Jimmy, you see, was a fairhaired boy, an' as I often fancied sort o’ chicken-hearted. Shows what a fool I was, that's all. "Jimmy, he an’ me kept together for a time, went foragin', and I must say he could jlst cook a chicken or turkey beautiful; he’d white hands like a woman, yes, an’ curls, yellow curls. “The battle where he fell *was at Shiloh; somehow we’d got separated, an’ in the midst o’ that fearful slaughter I saw close to me our coloncd, a man we all loved, who had a beautiful wife an’ baby, as we all knew. One o’ the reba leaped forward and was jist_goin’ to lay out our colonel, when up flew his arm an' he fell dead from Jimmy’s shot. Then other Confederates sprang at us, and we had a lively time, and we all fought like tigers. Ah, me! ah, me!” “Was Jimmy killed then?” “Jimmy? Oh, fust thing I knew our colonel was down, wounded in the breast, as we found afterward. Jimmy bent over him, lifted him in his arms—in his left arm, for he still fought with his right—an’ he sung out to me, gay an’ cheerful: “ ‘Cover me, Ted, the best you can. I'm takin’ the colonel to hia wife an* baby.’ “I tried to save him. I think they found out then the mettle in my good right arm; they'd ought, fur they shot it away in less than ten minutes. ‘T begun to back out after that. I felt tort o' weak; an’ as I went I wondered Jf Jimmy got away with the colonel. I had left the hottest o’ the fray; there was just then re-enforcements, an’ on I stumbled over dead an’ dying’ myself most dead with pain an* lota o’ blood. “As I went on slowly like, I saw a slender, boyish form, a head o' yellow

curls, among which was a crimson mass, an’ —an’ that was Jimmy.” “Dead?” “Oh, yes; killed by a ball, but I couldn’t see the colonel nowhere. So as I went away, where my arm got a little attention, I found that the colonel had been assisted off the battlefield by his own wife an’ servant, who, sure enough, was lookin’ fur him. “That’s the Story o* my boyhood’s chum; that’s the reason old maid Miss Ray never married, an* I reckon you don’t wonder I wished we knew where his grave was, so we could cover it over with flowers?” “I wish we could, Uncle Ted, but” — with a tender smile —“the heroes are not all dead. Seems to me we’ve got one in our own family, eh?” “Tut, tut; I only did my duty, that’s all, that’s all; but Jimmy was a hero, true blue.”