Southern Historical Society Papers, Volume 2.
Reverend J. William Jones, Ed.

[85] suppose, to Fort Delaware. Captain Hewlett is a very true friend and pleasant companion, and I regret his forced separation from me. These men are sent off to make room for the newly arrived wounded men captured at Cedar Creek, Virginia. I am pronounced too weak to accompany those sent off. Some of my own regiment have arrived, among them Sergeant Burton, of Company “B,” from Coosa county, and “Tony,” the Italian, belonging to Company “A,” from Mobile. From them I learn that the Twelfth Alabama lost seven men killed, and a number wounded. Among the former was Sergeant Robert H. Stafford, who was in command of my company. Bob was an old college mate, a member of the same literary society, a studious, dignified, pious youth, bearing the impress of admirable home government. He left college with myself and several other students, and true to his fond parents and sisters, to his threatened country, to what he thought was the cause of freedom, humanity and right, he entered bravely into the terrible contest. His motives, his principles, his conduct has been such, during his noble career as a soldier, as to constitute a reliable basis, on which to predicate the sublime conviction that in death he secured everlasting safety. In him I lose one of my warmest friends. Peace to his memory! Sergeant Burton told me of the reception of the official papers retiring Captain McNeely, of his assignment to conscript duty, and of my own promotion to the captaincy. I am now the only commissioned officer on the roll of the company, and I am away from them, a helpless, wounded prisoner. There being no lieutenant elected, the company is now probably under command of Sergeant Clower, or Sergeant Reid. We have had four captains and nine commissioned officers since we entered service. Of this number Captain Keeling and Lieutenant Fletcher were killed, and Captain McNeely and Lieutenant George W. Wright disabled by wounds. I, alone, of the nine am still connected with the company. A large bone, over an inch long, came out of my wound to-day.