Tasting ties.
After the bloody
battle of Sharpsburg,
Colonel Lee let up on the ‘boy company.’
He and they were ever afterwards friends.
The little fellows loved their commander, and never failed to divide with him anything they had gathered in foraging which they might have on hand; he was the recipient of fruit, eggs, and even more substantial luxuries when there was any among the boys of
Parker's Battery.
Now he treasures the precious memory of that noble company of boys, and the survivors love him, and he also loves them as only men can love each other who have been through the scenes in battle of a great war. Recently at the
Richmond reunion he met six or eight of the ‘boy company,’ who live in
Richmond, and he was deeply touched as they came around him, and put their hands and arms about him and recalled the scenes and incidents of the great battles of
Second Manassas and
Sharpsburg.
Not long after this
Colonel Lee was promoted and moved for service to the
West.
He was assigned to duty at
Vicksburg in November, 1862, but he ever afterward followed with pride the gallant and true ‘boy company’ (
Parker's Battery) which served to the close of the war and surrendered at the general collapse at
Appomattox.
The ‘boy company’ (
Parker's Battery) was but one of many such companies of boys organized during the great war, and I will now mention one company, composed entirely of
Mississippi boys, the captain of which was
Captain W. A. Montgomery, now of
Edwards, Miss., who was only about eighteen years of
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age. This company, after the
fall of Vicksburg, served under my command for a long time.
Captain Montgomery had about thirty dare-devil boys who lived almost all the time inside of the lines of the enemy.
They were invaluable as scouts.
The only trouble with them was that they were always too anxious to fight and follow their dare-devil captain in a charge.
They never counted the odds as a rule, but were as reckless as reckless boys could be. During the war I learned to trust boys as soldiers as reliantly as men in battle.
In fact, there was scarcely a regiment or company in the Confederate Army towards the close of the war that did not have nearly a score of boys under eighteen years of age in their ranks.
I glory in the boys of our Southland, for I learned this during the great war, and they stand only second to my love and veneration for the women of the
South.
Our splendid Southern women, Confederate women and their daughters, never tire in their patriotism.
They are now all over the territory of the ex-
Confederate States, placing monuments at every county seat to commemorate the valor, patriotism and sacrifice of the
Confederate soldier.
In overcoming almost insurmountable difficulties they have erected and have lately unveiled the splendid monument in
Richmond to our beloved
President Davis.
It did my heart good when the veterans of
Mississippi recently in reunion at
Meridian passed a resolution to ask the Legislature of
Mississippi to erect a monument to commemorate the unsurpassed patriotism of the
Confederate women during the bloody
Civil War.
