heard how a craven in one of our salients near the Baxter road had deserted his guns, and Preston had called for volunteers, manned them, and worked them until he was thus shot down. He was a handsome fellow as he lay there, apparently dead: thank Heaven he was not dead, but lived to hear the army resounding with praise of his courage. The minie which pierced him was in sight, and the surgeons extracted it. He recovered, and for years after peace returned was clerk of a court in Lynchburg, where one might see him writing and the deep scar over his eye, his handsomest dimple, throbbing with his thoughts as he wrote them down.

While we were back in the town, hurrying every available teamster and clerk and cook and man of any kind to the front, the famous charge of Mahone took place, and others were reaping the glory of that day. By the time our work was done, the Alabamians arrived, the surrender occurred, the firing slacked, and the prisoners came running into our lines from the ravine. It was a motley gathering, composed of troops, white and black, from every command and every branch of service in Burnside's corps. There they were, from the refined and distinguished-looking General Bartlett, who bore his misfortune like the Christian gentleman he was, down to the wildestlooking darkey, who expected every moment that he would be massacred.

The prisoners were corralled at Poplar Lawn, in Petersburg. It was soon discovered that nearly all the negroes were from eastern Virginia, many of them owned by the men they were fighting. A notice was posted permitting owners to reclaim their property, and the negroes were delighted at the prospect of being treated as slaves, instead of being put to death or sent to a Confederate military prison. Some of the reclamations made were dra

matic, some pathetic, and some highly amusing. This last expression seems out of place in connection with this awful tragedy, but it is true, nevertheless. The negroes had witnessed such fierce butchery of their companions up to the time they had raised the white flag, that they were frantic with fear, and saw no hope of escape. As they came running into our lines through the dangers of the firing from their own friends, they landed among our men, falling on their knees, their eyes rolling in terror, exclaiming, “Fur God sake, Marster, doan' kill me. Spar' me, Marster, and I'll wuk fur you as long as I lib." "Marster" never fell from their poor lips so glibly or so often in all their lives; and even after they had been with us long enough to know it was not our purpose to put them to death, when one of them discovered his real “Marster,” he greeted him as if he beheld an angel of deliverance. According to the story of every mother's son of them, he was not a volunteer, but had been forced into the Union service against his will. Of course we knew just how much of these tales to believe; but it is safe to say that every master who reclaimed a slave from the Federal prisoners captured at the crater felt reasonably certain his man would never again volunteer upon either side in any war.

It seems fitting to close this ghastly narrative with one ludicrous incident, which shows that no situation is so bloody or so tragic that it has not some episode to relieve its horrors. In our brigade was a young fellow who, while fighting gallantly at the traverse near the crater, received a bullet in the forearm. His wound was dressed, and he was given a ten days' furlough. He was from eastern Virginia, and his home was in the Union lines. He had no friends, no money, and nowhere to go. In this condition, he was wandering about the streets of

Petersburg the day after the crater fight, when his eye fell upon the notice to owners that they might reclaim their slaves from the prisoners. Thinking that possibly he might find one of his father's slaves among them, he wandered down to Poplar Lawn. In vain he sought for a familiar face, and was turning away, when an attractive, smiling young darkey caught his eye and said, "Boss, fur God sake, claim me fur yo' nigger."

"What do you mean, you rascal? I never saw you before," was the reply.

"I knows it, sah," said the darkey; "but ef I says I belongs to you, who gwine to dispute it, if you don't?"

"If I had you, I'd sell you to-morrow," was the quick reply of the young fellow, whose eye brightened with a happy thought.

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"I doan' keer ef you does sell me, sah," said the darkey. "Dat's a heap better dan goin' to a Confederick prison pen."

"Done!" said the soldier; "when I come back here, you speak to me and call me ' Mars' Ben,' and I'll attend to the rest."

So out he went, and soon came back; and, as he went searching for his slaves, accompanied by an officer in charge, the darkey greeted him with "How you do, Mars' Ben?" Then Ben swore at him, and denounced him for his ingratitude and desire to kill his master and benefactor, and they carried it off so well that no one suspected the ruse, and the darkey was delivered to "Mars' Ben " as his owner, and "Mars' Ben" took him to Richmond and sold him for $5000 in Confederate money. "Mars' Ben" had a great furlough with that $5000. At the end of ten days, he returned to duty with a new suit of clothes and fed like a fighting-cock, but without a dollar in his pocket. The darkey went to some plantation and never

saw a prison pen, and a year afterwards was a free citizen of the United States, and probably wound up his career in some scalawag legislature, or even as a member of Congress, who knows? Such things were possible in those days.

A short while ago, I met Ben. I asked him where he was going.

He is gray-headed now.
He said to a protracted

meeting. He told me he had become religious, and said he wished I would reform.

"Is it an experience meeting, Ben?" said I.

"Yes," said he.

"Have you ever told them about that darkey you sold after the crater fight?" said I.

"Now, look here, old fellow," said he, growing confidential, and with a genuine touch of pitiful pleading in his voice, "I wish you would not give me away about that thing. I have prayed for forgiveness for that many a night. But I don't believe the Lord wants me to expose myself before my neighbors, and I hope you will not." I agreed to spare him, and so I will; but, if necessity should demand it, I can put my hand upon him now, within eight hours' ride from the spot on which I write.

CHAPTER XXIII

THE CONFEDERATE RESERVES

IN September, 1864, the commission as drill-master, with rank and pay of second lieutenant, arrived, accompanied by orders to report for duty October 1 to Colonel Robert Preston, commanding a newly organized regiment of reserve forces at Dublin Depot, in southwestern Virginia. The red seal and signature of the Secretary of War, and the idea of being addressed as lieutenant, made their distinct impressions, but did not overcome the desire to remain with the army at the front.

Vain, however, were all pleadings; and even Mahone, when appealed to to intercede for my services, seemed indifferent, and dwelt upon the honor to be gained by faithful work in preparing raw troops for actual service, and the duty of deferring to the judgment and wishes of a parent. It was easy to see that he and "the old general” had been talking together since that first meeting.

When, September 30, I boarded a west-bound train at Petersburg to join my command, the new, bright bar upon my collar and gilt scrolls upon my sleeves gave little satisfaction. I felt as if I had been treated like a baby, tucked away in a place of safety, and was consenting to turn my back upon the enemy just when every man was most needed in Lee's army. And was I not a man? Of course I was. I was nearly eighteen! When my father parted with me, after much good advice and an affectionate farewell, I know it was with the solacing