The Wilderness campaign.
This campaign furnishes an interesting study, and these young men, fired with the military spirit, will do well to read carefully the reports of the same.
Wickham's brigade rendered most effective service in this campaign.
Its losses, from the
Rapidan to
Petersburg, were simply fearful.
They have been related around the camp fires of this camp, and our active, untiring and enthusiastic comrade,
Thomas W. Sydnor, in presenting the portrait of the noble
Wickham, gave many incidents that recalled vividly those dark and bloody days.
Wickham, who had been brigadier-general since September, 1863, was in charge of his own brigade.
He was a member of the Confederate Congress at the same time that he was a general in the army.
This accounts for the fact that
Colonel Munford is so often mentioned as commanding the brigade.
The temptation is very great to stop here and tell of
Todd's Tavern and Jarrall's Mill and Mitchell's Shop and
Yellow Tavern,
Meadow Bridge and Haw's Shop and second Cold Harbor, where we neared the border land of independence, but I am reminded that the infantry needs rest.
It was our business to see that they enjoyed in absolute security ‘
Nature's sweet restorer,’ and to bear with Christian patience and fortitude their facetious jokes at our expense.
At the Trevillian fight
Colonel Munford, with the 2d regiment, captured
Custer's batteries with his headquarter's wagon and his letters.
I had in my possession
Mrs. General Custer's letter to
General Munford acknowledging the return of
General Custer's cape and sash.
During the war with
Spain I made application for a commission for
General Munford.
Had his letter authorizing me to see the
Secretary of War and the
President, and offer his services to the government, been received two weeks sooner than it was, I feel sure he would have been given a commission.
With his accustomed modesty, he neglected to ask for the endorsements he could so easily have obtained, and wrote me to offer his services, saying that no one knew him better than I did, and that he was satisfied to leave the matter with me. I mention this to
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show the spirit of the man. Some philospher has said: “It is the spirit in which we act that is the highest matter after all.”
A high sense of duty and a distinterested patriotic spirit stirred the heart and nerved the arm of
Munford through the four long years of our unequal conflict.
This same spirit has made him a useful and exemplary citizen through the years since the war. After all, ‘Peace has her victories no less renowned than war.’
Many an old soldier who never quaked in the fore front of battle, who bravely faced the dangers nature shrinks from, was unable after the struggle to face life's stern duties, where moral courage and patient endurance is no less demanded than under the mortal perils of the battle field.
