[213]
pathetic ceremony, and a few nights ago he related the thrilling old war incident to a few friends who had gathered in his apartments on Rampart street.
“To the best of my knowledge, no one has ever written just how General Henry Little was buried on that eventful night,” began Captain Von Phul, turning the pages of a treasure book.
I shall never forget it, and although I was in several phases of the service with Price on his Missouri raid and down the Mississippi, yet the way we laid General Little in the cold ground that night, cautiously and hastily, will cling to me until the last. We were mostly Missourians, and in order to appreciate the scene enacted at Iuka, Miss., you must follow me from the start, which was in St. Louis in the year 1860. General Sterling Price went out in the command of the Missouri State Guard for the Confederacy. Brigadier-General Little was placed in command of a brigade of the First Missouri. We were sworn in on Sock river, down in Missouri, and it was for a three years term. Well, there was plenty of fighting all down the river and we were in a number of engagements, but my story centers about Corinth and Iuka, Miss. Iuka Springs was a little place, and it was there that the enemy attacked us in overpowering numbers. Rosecrans was bearing down upon General Price with his whole army. The first battle of Iuka had taken place on this direful September 19, 1862. I was an aid-de-camp on General Little's staff, and it was only Little's division that had been engaged in the day's fighting. It was a hard struggle, and we had lost somewhere near 800 men when the fighing ceased, near sundown. I had been dispatched off to the northeast to bring up General Elijah Gates, who was wanted to re-enforce Little. The four generals—Price, Little, Herbert and Whitfield—were sitting on their horses in the road holding a consultation as to whether they should attack the enemy on the morrow or fall back, when I rode up from summoning Colonel Gates. General Price was sitting at rest on his charger, his arms akimbo, with his back towards the lines of the Yankees. General Little was facing him. Just as I reached the spot a minie ball came whizzing through the group, passing under the arm of General Price and striking General Little square in the forehead. He threw up his arms, the reins dropping to the horse's neck, and the brave man, limp and lifeless, fell into the arms of a comrade. He was borne
