icer, when going into battle, charged his servant to stay at his tent and take care of his property.
In the fluctuations of the battle, some of the enemy's shot fell in the vicinity of the tent, and the negro, with great white eyes, fled away with all his might.
After the fight, and when the officer returned to his tent, he was vexed to learn that his slave had run away, but the boy soon returned, confronting his indignant master, who threatened to chastise him for disobedience of orders.
Caesar said: Massa, you told me to take care of your property, and dis property (placing his hand on his breast) is worf fifteen hundred dollars.
He escaped punishment.
Some 200,000 of the Abolition army will be disbanded in May by the expiration of their terms of enlistment, and we have every reason to believe that their places cannot be filled by new recruits.
If we hold out until then, we shall be able to resist at all vital points.
January 19
We have rumors of fighting this morning
nday last, with some eight generals-among them Lieut.-Gen. Ewell, Major-Gen. G. W. Custis Lee, etc.
The clergy also seem to favor a convention, and the resumption by Virginia of her old position in the Union-minus slavery.
Charlottesville has been named as the place for the assembling of the convention.
They also believe that Judge Campbell remained to treat with the United States at the request of the Confederate States Government.
I doubt.
We shall now have no more interference in Caesar's affairs by the clergy — may they attend to God's hereafter!
Ten o'clock P. M. A salute fired-100 guns — from the forts across the river, which was succeeded by music from all the bands.
The guard promenading in front of the house says a dispatch has been received from Grant announcing the surrender of Lee!
I hear that Gen. Pickett was killed in the recent battle!
April 10
Raining. I was startled in bed by the sound of cannon from the new southside fort again.
I suppose anot
ination to superstition.
He held most firmly to the doctrine of fatalism all his life.
His wife, after his death, told me what I already knew, that his only philosophy was, what is to be will be, and no prayers of ours can reverse the decree.
He always contended that he was doomed to a sad fate, and he repeatedly said to me when we were alone in our office: I am sure I shall meet with some terrible end.
In proof of his strong leaning towards fatalism he once quoted the case of Brutus and Caesar, arguing that the former was forced by laws and conditions over which he had no control to kill the latter, and, vice versa, that the latter was specially created to be disposed of by the former.
This superstitious view of life ran through his being like the thin blue vein through the whitest marble, giving the eye rest from the weariness of continued unvarying color.
I have heard him frequently quote the couplet,
There's a divinity that shapes our ends, Rough-hew them how we will.
ioned in terms of compliment.
General Grant said: Yes; Sheridan is an improvement upon some of his predecessors in the valley of Virginia.
They demonstrated the truth of the military principle that a commander can generally retreat successfully from almost any position — if he only starts in time.
Stanton laughed heartily at the general's way of putting it, and remarked: But in all retreats I am told that there is another principle to be observed: a man must not look back.
I think it was Caesar who said to an officer in his army who had retreated repeatedly, but who afterward appeared before his commander and pointed with pride to a wound on his cheek: Ah!
I see you are wounded in the face; you should not have looked back.
At Aiken's Landing General Butler joined the party, and pointed out the objects of interest along his lines.
Mr. Stanton then spoke with much earnestness of the patient labors and patriotic course of the President.
There had been rumors of disagreements and
ts that much danger makes great hearts most resolute, fertile in resources, combining the restlessness of a Hotspur with the patience of a Fabius, it is no wonder that he should have been looked upon as the wizard of the battle-field.
Generous of his life, gifted with the ingenuity of a Hannibal, the dash of a Murat, the courage of a Ney, the magnetism of his presence roused his troops to deeds of individual heroism, and his unconquerable columns rushed to victory with all the confidence of Caesar's Tenth Legion.
Wherever blows fell thickest, there was his crest.
Despite the valor of the defense, opposing ranks went down before the fierceness of his onsets, never to rise again, and he would not pause till the folds of his banners waved above the strongholds he had wrested from the foe. Brave Sheridan!
I can almost see him now, his silent clay again quickened into life, once more riding Rienzi through a fire of hell, leaping opposing earthworks at a single bound, and leaving nothing
st the end of their brigade line, and a very thin line it was. We saw nothing of the major-general of our division.
General Rodes, of Ewell's corps, was the only major-general we saw. He was a man of very striking appearance, of erect, fine figure and martial bearing.
He constantly passed and repassed in rear of our guns, riding a black horse that champed his bit and tossed his head proudly, until his neck and shoulders were flecked with white froth, seeming to be conscious that he carried Caesar.
Rodes' eyes were everywhere, and every now and then he would stop to attend to some detail of the arrangement of his line or his troops, and then ride on again, humming to himself and catching the ends of his long, tawny moustache between his lips.
It had rained hard all night and was drizzling all day, and everything was wet, soggy, muddy, and comfortless.
General Ewell made his headquarters not far off, and seemed busy and apprehensive, and we gathered from everything we saw and he
y successive lines of earth — works, that reviled policy of West Pointism and spades, which is sure to succeed against those who do not employ like means to counteract it.
Politicians, newspapers, and uneducated officers have created such a prejudice in our army against labor, that it will be difficult, until taught by sad experience, to induce our troops to work efficiently.
The greatest generals of ancient and modern times have won their renown by labor.
Victories were the results.
Caesar, who revolutionized the military system of his age, never slept in a camp without intrenching it. France, Spain, and Great Britain retain to this day memorials of Roman invasion in the massive works constructed by the Roman armies.
I will endeavor, by movements which are not without great hazard, to countervail the enemy's policy.
If we succeed in rendering his works useless to him, and compel him to meet us on the field, I have much confidence in our ability to give him a complete defe
him into the hall where it had assembled, as that fact had been noticed by the press of the country.
I was with Colonel Sumner that day, July 4, 1856, at Topeka, and was his adjutant.
I was asked by one of the persons present as to the correctness of the statement regarding Sumner's going alone into the hall, and I substantiated the fact.
Mr. Davis, in answer to some adverse criticism upon Sumner, promptly replied: Brave and honest men are not suspicious, and Edwin Sumner is as brave as Caesar and honest as Cato.
This illustrates Mr. Davis's fidelity to truth and justice, regardless of sectional birth or habitation.
All knew Sumner was from Massachusetts. Mr. Davis appointed him senior colonel of the four new regiments which were added to the army in. March, 1855.
Upon reaching Richmond, in the summer of 1861, after resigning the commission I held in the army, I delivered to President Davis a message from a young officer whom I had left upon the frontier.
The young officer
y of Plutarch's heroes, were anxious to get away and leave the glory and renown of defense to others.
Johnston was in no sense responsible for the construction of these forts nor the assignment to their command of these self-denying warriors, but his line of communication was uncovered by their fall and he was compelled to retire to the southern bank of the Tennessee river.
From the enlighteners of public opinion a howl of wrath came forth.
Johnston, who had just been Alexander, Hannibal, Caesar, Napoleon, was now a miserable dastard and traitor, unfit to command a corporal's guard.
President Davis sought to console him, and the noblest lines ever penned by man were written by Johnston in reply.
They even wrung tears of repentance from the pachyderms who had attacked him, and will be a text and consolation to future commanders who serve a country tolerant of an ignorant and licentious press.
As pure gold he came forth from the furnace, above the reach of slander, the foremost man
to throw the blame upon any shoulders but its own, the brave veteran was deprived of his command by the Navy Department. It was the old story, but a very sad one. Admiral Du Pont took with him to his retirement the respect and sympathy of those who had been with him in his active service.
In the words applied to another commander-in-chief, by the historian, General Sir William Napier, they had served long enough under his command to know why the soldiers of the tenth legion were attached to Caesar.
Arriving at Port Royal, Admiral Du Pont hurried forward the repairs of the monitors with the view of sending them to the Gulf, as directed by the Secretary of the Navy.
On the 16th, however, came orders to renew the menace against Charleston, but his monitors were not repaired, nor could the Ironsides cross the bar until the next spring-tides.
Meanwhile, the dispatches reciting the details of the battle
Rear-Admiral J. A. Dahlgren.
From a photograph. of the 7th of April had, on the
