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 Memories oe the Lost Cause 
 
 STORIES AND ADVENTURES OF A CONFEDERATE SOLDIER 
 
 IN GENERAL R. E. LEE'S ARMY 
 
 1861 TO 1865 
 
 AND 
 
 Ten Years in South America 
 
 ITS RESOURCES, TRADE AND COMMERCE, AND BUSINESS 
 
 AND SOCIAL INTERCOURSE WITH 
 
 OTHER COUNTRIES 
 
 1<it 
 
 BY 
 
 J. M. POLK 
 AUSTIN, TEXAS 
 
 A. D. 1905 
 
 Fiice 25 Cents; 20 or More Copies, 20 Cents in Advance. 
 
J. M. POLK. 
 
Memories of the Lost Cause 
 
 STORIES AND ADVENTURES OF A CONFEDERATE SOLDIER 
 
 IN GENERAL R. E. LEE'S ARMY 
 
 1861 TO 1865 
 
 AND 
 
 Ten Years in South America 
 
 ITS RESOURCES, TRADE AND COMMERCE, AND BUSINESS 
 
 AND SOCIAL INTERCOURSE WITH 
 
 OTHER COUNTRIES 
 
 ?K 
 
 3I£ 
 
 BY 
 
 J. M. POLK 
 
 AUSTIN, TEXAS 
 
 A. D. 1905 
 
Copyright. 1905, 
 
 BY 
 
 J. M. POLK, 
 Austin, Texas. 
 
 Gift 
 
MEMORIES OF THE LOST CAUSE. 
 
 STORIES AND ADVENTURES OF A CONFEDERATE SOLDIER 
 
 OF HOOD'S TEXAS BRIGADE, GENERAL LEE'S 
 
 ARMY. 
 
 Since the close of the war between the States, from 1861 to 1865. 
 I have noticed and read with a great deal of interest letters and 
 articles in books and newspapers abont the cause and results of 
 that long and bloody struggle. As I took part in the conflict, I 
 have thought for a long time that I would answer some of those 
 letters, as I might be able to give some account of friends and 
 relatives lost and almost forgotten. But it has been so long that 
 many of the incidents are almost like a dream to me now. I am 
 not well enough versed in the art of literature to write a book or 
 for a newspaper. I have heard it thunder too often, have lost the 
 use of my right arm, and I am generally out of fix. Then, I 
 never professed to know much, for I was a private most of the 
 time in a regiment of infantry and had no opportunity of know- 
 ing anything except what happened near me. 
 
 I was born in Greene county, Missouri, five miles east of Spring- 
 field, in the year 1838. My father was a native of Maury county. 
 Tennessee. I enlisted in the Confederate army in July, 1861, in 
 Captain Winkler's company at Corsicana, Texas. From there T 
 went to Virginia, and was attached to the Fourth Texas Infantry, 
 Hood's Brigade, General Lee's army. My first introduction on 
 a battlefield was at Seven Pines. This satisfied me that war was 
 not what it had been pictured in books and newspapers, and that 
 if we accomplished what we started out to do, it would be a dearly 
 bought victory; but I supposed I would stay as long as any of 
 them — I never was of a boasting disposition. It reminded me of a 
 conversation I had with General Sam Houston before leaving 
 Texas. The three Texas regiments had lost so many men by sick- 
 ness and exposure that it was necessary to send back to Texas 
 for recruits, and Captain Winkler and myself were on the way to 
 Virginia with recruits for our company. It was in the month 
 
— 4— 
 
 of April, 1862, when I met General Houston in the barber ship 
 of the Fannin House in Houston. He looked at me a few min- 
 utes and said: "Well, young man, I suppose you arc off for the 
 war.*' "Yes, sir." He was on crutches, dressed in a long, loose 
 sack coat, broad-brimmed hat and had the largest ring 1 ever saw 
 on a man's ringer. "Well, I am too old now to be of any service 
 to my country," he continued. "Texas people refuse to take my 
 counsel; I can do them no good and God knows [ do not wish to 
 do them any harm. I do not think our cause will justify the loss 
 of so much life and property, but still if I wore able and they 
 refused to go my way, I would go with them."' lie made some 
 sarcastic remarks about Louis T. Wigfall which I do not remem- 
 ber. After the battle of Seven Pines, our next move (that is. 
 Whiting's division) was to join General Jackson in the valley of 
 Virginia. We met him near Staunton, Va. We were all ignorant 
 then about discipline in the army and thought wo had a right to 
 know as much as the officers. But we soon found out different. 
 General Whiting was an old army officer, and a good one. and he 
 said to General Hood that be bad no doubt but what those Texas 
 men would make good soldiers, "but you will have a hard time 
 to get them down to army regulations." General Jackson was a 
 good hand to execute and keep bis own counsel, and about the 
 first thing he done was to give us to understand that we must 
 know nothing but obey orders, and if any citizen on the march 
 should ask us wtbare wteiare going, "tell them you don't know." The 
 next day he came along and noticed one of our men leaving ranks 
 for a cherry tree. Cherries were getting ripe. "Where are you 
 going," said the general. "1 don't know, sir." "What regiment 
 do you belong to?" "1 don't know, sir." "Wbat do you know?" 
 "I know General Jackson said we must not know anything till 
 after the fight's over." "Is that all you know?" "I know that I 
 want to go to that cherry tree." "Well, go on." The next day 
 he came along and one of our men says to him: "General, where 
 are we going?" He turned around ami looked at him a few 
 minutes and said : "Are you a good band to keep a secret?" "Yes, 
 sir." "Well, so am I"; and rode on. Then it was a forced march 
 to the rear of McClellan's army, which we reached about the 2511) 
 of June, and on the 27th of .June. L862, was fought the memor- 
 able battle of Gaines' Mil] and the Seven Days battle near Rich- 
 
— 5— 
 
 mond. The whole country knows the result. At Gaines' Mill our 
 regiment, the Fourth Texas, lost its colonel and lieutenant col- 
 onel and the major was wounded, which left us without a field 
 officer. It was reported that we lost about three hundred killed 
 and wounded. I was one of the wounded, hut unless a man was 
 killed on the field or lost a leg or an arm, it was only consid- 
 ered a furlough, so I got a furlough and I missed the second bat- 
 tle of Manassas by about three days, and I never did regret it. 
 I was wounded in the arm, and it swelled to about the size of a 
 ztove pipe, turned as black as a pot, and the doctors thought for 
 a while that it would have to be amputated. All the other regi- 
 ments (.f the brigade and division lost heavily, but not so much as 
 the Fourth Texas, because it seemed to me we were right in front 
 of the Federal batteries supported by infantry. It was reported 
 that our company lost twenty-nine killed and wounded, but I 
 can not now remember all their names. The first man killed in 
 Winkler's company was named Fondron, and his people lived in 
 Young county, Texas. I was within five feet of him; he dropped 
 his gun and said, "Oh, Lord !" and fell within about fifty steps of 
 the battery. The first man killed in the regiment was Jim Smy- 
 lev. from Kobertson county, Texas. We were then about twelve 
 or fourteen hundred yards from the battery. He was struck by a 
 shell. About that time General Hood gave the command, "For- 
 ward, guide center, march, give way to the right, give way to the 
 left ; watch your colors, men !" Now, that is the last command 
 you hear in going into a hard-fought battle. Then it is every fellow 
 for himself and the devil for all, and the man with the musket 
 does the balance. We carried the position, but with heavy loss. 
 Captain Hutchison, from Navasota, was killed on the field, Cap- 
 tain Ryan from Waco, Captain Porter from Huntsville, and Bob 
 Lambert from Austin all died in the same room in Richmond, and 
 I suppose I am one of the last men that saw them alive. Rich- 
 mond was crowded with wounded men. I went down to the Chim- 
 berazo Hospital and found Jim Treadwell, Mat Beasley and. I 
 think, Jim Shaw, all wounded. I secured a carriage and took 
 them to the Catholic Hospital, where they received better atten- 
 tion, and all recovered. Jim Treadwell was a great oddity. He 
 was shot in the instep of the foot; he said in all seriousness that 
 he had just put on a new pair of shoes that day and that the shot 
 
— 6— 
 
 ruined the shoe. When Captain Winkler was entering his name 
 on the muster rolls, he asked Jim his native State. Jim said he 
 was born in Cowita county, Ga., but that he stopped thirty-six 
 years in Texas to fatten his horse, went to California in '49 and 
 was a ranger on the frontier of Texas several years. I was in- 
 formed that Dick Wade was badly wounded, but 1 could not learn 
 where he was. I put in two days in search of him and finally 
 found him in a box oar in Manchester, opposite Richmond, from 
 which place I took him to the Catholic Hospital. Dick is now liv- 
 ing at Wootan Wells, Falls county, Texas; Mat Beasley in Na- 
 varro county, Texas, and Jim Treadwell died in East Texas nine 
 or ten years ago. I do not know what became of Jim Shaw, it has 
 been so long I have almost forgotten him. 
 
 About the 1st of September, 1862, as well as I qan remember, 
 Jim Aston of Winkler's company and myself started out from 
 Richmond to overtake the army. When we reached Rapidan Sta- 
 tion, as far as we could go on the railroad, we heard that there 
 had been another fight at Manassas. The next day we started out 
 on foot. We soon began to meet the sick, barefooted and wounded 
 that could walk, and prisoners, some of the latter negroes. When 
 we reached Warrenton I found Tom Morris and Bill Spence of 
 our company in the hospital, both mortally wounded. I gave them 
 $10, all the money I had, and left them and never saw them again. 
 Their people lived in Navarro county, Texas. We traveled to 
 Leesburg, then to Point of Rocks on the Potomac, twelve miles 
 1 think, and crossed it between midnight and day. The river was 
 only about waist-deep and we had no trouble in reaching the other 
 side. We had had nothing to eat for nearly two days, and we held 
 a little consultation, as we were then in the State of Maryland 
 and did not know how the people would treat us. We concluded 
 to try some of the citizens for breakfast, so I started to a house 
 about a half mile from the road and Jim followed along behind 
 me. When I reached the house the woman came out and I asked 
 her if she would give us some breakfast. I told her that we had 
 had nothing to eat for two days and that we were hungi-y. She 
 said to come in. We went into the kitchen and sat down at the 
 table. She put out the buttermilk, light bread, butter and coffee, 
 and when we were done we thanked her, but when we started to 
 leave we found that we were so heavilv "loaded" that we could 
 
—7— 
 
 hardly walk. We traveled on, I don't remember the distance, but 
 found General Lee's army near Frederick City, Md. We remained 
 there two or three days and then started in the direction of Hagers- 
 town, Md. When we reached Boonsboro we had another fight. The 
 next day we moved on and soon heard the cannonading at Har- 
 per's Ferry, and when we reached Sharpsburg we heard that Gen- 
 eral Jackson had taken the place with ten thousand men and all 
 the garrison. I could see General Lee a short distance from the 
 road. He was on foot and Colonel Chilton, I think, was with him. 
 General Lee was a short, heavy-set man, with iron-gray hair and 
 the largest head I ever saw. He carried his arm in a sling, as it 
 had been injured by his horse falling with him at Manassas. The 
 Federal army was close behind us and I could see from the move- 
 ments that we would soon have another bloody conflict. About 
 that time the sergeant ordered me to go back to the banks of the 
 Antietam, on the picket line. I remained there all day and after 
 dark returned to my command, which was located near the old 
 Dunkard Church. 
 
 The next morning a small amount of bacon and flour was issued. 
 I was trying to cook some bread; I took the ramrod out of my 
 gun, wet up the flour without grease or salt, wrapped it around 
 the ramrod, and was holding it over the fire when a shell from 
 one of the Federal batteries fell, bursting near me, and break- 
 ing a man's leg. In less time than it takes to tell it, we formed 
 in line of battle and the command was given to "forward." Our 
 ranks were so reduced that regiments looked like companies and 
 brigades like regiments; and this was about the condition of Gen- 
 eral I^ee's army on that day. I don't remember the date, but it 
 was between the 12th and 20th of September, 1862. Some were 
 in hospitals sick or wounded, some discharged, some dead. The 
 Federals must have had about three or four to our one, and it was 
 as near a knock-down and drag-out as anything I have ever seen 
 or heard of. The air was full of shot and shell and we were in 
 an open field with no protection and it seemed almost impossible 
 for a rat to live in such a place. The dead and dying were in 
 every direction. I heard that the 1st Texas regiment lost nineteen 
 color-bearers and finally lost their colors. I didn't take time to 
 load my gun, for there were plenty of loaded guns lying on the 
 ground by the side of the dead and wounded men, and thev were 
 
— 8— 
 
 not all Confederates; the Blue and the Grey were all mixed up. 
 The New Jersey men were in front of us; this I found out the 
 next day, after Generals Lee and McClellan had agreed upon a 
 cessation of hostilities in order to take care of the dead and 
 wounded. I saw a great many men go in that day who never came 
 out, but it has been so long that I do not remember their names, 
 not even the members of my own company. I saw Milt Garner 
 go in but never saw him again. Re was an old friend and neighbor 
 of mine and hit* people now live in Navarro county, Texas. I can 
 remember a little fellow by the name of Paul. I was on picket 
 with him the day before. He was the only Jew I ever saw in the 
 army, and belonged to Martin's company, from Henderson county, 
 Texas, but I never saw Paul any more. I can remember that all 
 that was left of our company, out of over 100, after we came out 
 of that fight, was Captain Winkler, Lieutenant Mills and eight 
 men. We had hardly stacked our guns, when" a. shell from one of 
 the Federal batteries exploded near us, knocked the guns down 
 and came very near killing the balance of us. I could not help 
 but think how different this was from the way it was pictured out 
 to us in war speeches at the commencement. It reminded me of 
 what one of our men by the name of Brooks told me. He said he 
 was on the picket line with an Irishman. The Federals outnum- 
 bered them and they knew it, and it began to be a serious matter. 
 So Mike said to the captain: "We must be getting away from 
 here. They will kill us all." "No, you must stand your ground, 
 Mike," said the captain. "If you should happen to be killed here, 
 there would lie a great big monument erected to your memory. 
 with great big letters on it, 'Sacred to the memory of Mike Dono- 
 hue, who died in defense of his country.' " "Yes, and be Jasus 
 and it might stand here one hundred years," said Mike, "and I 
 would never read a word of it, sir." 
 
 The next day I went out with the litter bearers among the dead 
 and wounded near the old stone church. The first man I noticed 
 was a wounded Federal soldier. He made motions for me to come 
 to him. He asked me if I would give him some water. He said 
 he had been lying there twenty-four hours and was nearly dead 
 from thirst. My canteen was full, as well as I can remember, 
 and I handed it to him. I think he drank it all or most of it. 
 He then said he felt better and that he could not have lived much 
 
— 9— 
 
 longer without water. I think he said he --beltthged to the Thir- 
 teenth New Jersey, and had been in the army only about two 
 weeks. He said he was a shoemaker by trade,' and supported him- 
 self, mother and sister, but now he was crippled and did not know 
 what would become of them or whether he would ever see them 
 again. About that time my attention was attracted to the litter- 
 bearers trying to move a man that had been killed the day before. 
 There was a dog lying beside him, and every time they started 
 toward the man, the dog would jump at them and growl; he 
 thought the man was only asleep. They were meditating about 
 what to do — to move the man they would have to kill the dog. I 
 started toward them, and in passing a tree I heard a minnie ball 
 strike the tree, and one of the litter-bearers cried, "Drop that 
 gun. We are under a white flag here. You ought not to come 
 out here with a gun.'* Well, it didn't take me long to drop that 
 gun. The best friend to man is the dog, next is the horse, and 
 many a poor horse loses its life trying to serve the man. 
 
 That night, between midnight and day, we crossed the Potomac. 
 We traveled on about two miles and lay down beside the road. 
 About daylight we heard the roar of artillery and musketry lie- 
 hind us. From this we knew that the Federals were following us. 
 We soon learned that General Jackson had stationed his men on 
 the south side of the river, and when the Federals began to cross, 
 he gave them a lot of dead and wounded to take care of. We had 
 no more trouble with them for a while. We traveled on, and when 
 we reached Front Royal we had another fight, and there we lost 
 Captain Woodward of the First Texas, who came from Palestine. 
 Texas. 
 
 We traveled on. and one day halted on the side of the road to 
 rest. Bill Fuller had just come in with some whisky. He was an 
 old man, and the captain never tried to control him. He would 
 always go into a fight, but he was never very particular about 
 keeping up on a march or staying in camp. Often he would try 
 to borrow General Hood's horse to go to town to pick up stragglers. 
 The artillery and wagons were passing, and Bill was having some- 
 thing to say to everybody, and we were all laughing at him. About 
 that time. General Hood and his staff came along, and Bill jumped 
 up and gave him a salute, and said : "Early camps tonight, Gen- 
 eral, and plenty of meat and bread." "Sir,'' replied General 
 
—10— 
 
 Hood, "we will stop ,about a mile and a half from here." "If it's 
 all the same with you. General," says Bill, "leave ouit the 'about,' 
 and tell us how far it is, for we are awful hungry and tired." Cap- 
 tain Winkler was a good-natured kind of a man, and I never 
 heard him utter a profane word, but he was out of patience with 
 Bill. He turned around to us and said: "You confounded fel- 
 lows, I am trying to quiet the man, and you all are encouraging 
 him. I'll have the last one of you arrested if you don't let him 
 alone. Fuller, if you don't dry up I will have you put in the 
 guard house as soon as we stop." "All right, captain," replied 
 Bill, "I am either on guard or under guard all the time and it's 
 all the same with me, sir." Bill died about two years ago in 
 Wharton county, Texas; he was totally Mind and his hair was as 
 white as cotton. Captain King had agreed to take him into the 
 Confederate Home, but it was too late. When I wrote to him 
 to come to Austin, that Sam Billingsley and myself would sign 
 his papers, his family answered and said he had been dead about 
 three weeks. 
 
 We were now on the south hank of the Kappahanock, near 
 Fredericksburg, and many of the men who had been sick and 
 wounded came in. The Federal army was on the north bank. 
 They tried to cross and drive us south, and there we had another 
 fight, but most of it was in the front of General Jackson. It was 
 about this time that the Fighteenth Georgia left us and went to 
 some other department. They were a gallant set of men and 
 called themselves the Third Texas. We regretted to see them go. 
 hut the Third Arkansas took their place — a regiment of good men. 
 
 It is now December and there is plenty of snow, and it is very 
 cold. Captain Keilly and some of the other officers called out the 
 men for a snow-ball fight. There must have been at least ten 
 thousand men engaged in the battle. Snow flew in every direc- 
 tion. Eeilly's battery was attached to Hood's Brigade. Captain 
 Reilly was on his borse and had the appearance of a "Lager Beer 
 Dutchman." The men piled snow upon him until it was almost 
 impossible to tell the color of his horse, but still he seemed to 
 enjoy the sport. The next day we. went down on the banks of the 
 Kappahanock on picket. The Federals were on the opposite side. 
 We sat there and talked to them all day. .One of them said, "Boys, 
 can't you throw me over some tobacco?" "All right," was the 
 
—11— 
 
 answer. "Throw us over some late papers, and we'll throw you 
 some tobacco." This we did by tying a rock to it, but General 
 Lee soon heard of this and stopped it. We had to do something; 
 some of the men played cards, some chuck-a-luck. We organized 
 a court martial to try some of the men. We were reminded that 
 when the fight commenced at Manassas they were issuing rations, 
 and i<t was necessary to detail two men from each company to take 
 the bacon and crackers and go to the rear. Jordan and Warren 
 started to the rear for our company, and when they were about a 
 half mile off, where the shells from the Federal batteries would 
 fall and explode, they pulled for tall timber and it was nearly two 
 days before they joined the company. Bob Crawford was the mar- 
 shal, George Foster was the attorney, and I was the judge advo- 
 cate. Warren's case was called and it was decided to ride him on 
 a pole, which was done; but he soon jumped off, with his butcher 
 knife in his hand, and the boys had all they could do to keep out 
 of his reach. All this time Jordan was sitting down before the 
 fire whittling, apparently indifferent as to what was going on. 
 When his name was called I proposed to the court that before we 
 proceed with the regular order of business that we question Mr. 
 Jordan and see whether or not he was in his right mind when he 
 ran off with the meat. George Foster tapped him on the shoulder 
 and said: "Come, Ira; you hear what the judge says?" Jordan 
 turned around in an indifferent kind of way and replied: "Now 
 look here boys, enough of anything is enough. I am in my right 
 mind now, and if you fellows fool with me I'll stick my knife 
 in some of you." Of course, when he said this, the men all 
 whooped and yelled, and some of the officers hearing them, inter- 
 fered and broke up the court. 
 
 We soon started south (that is, Longstreet's corps), and left 
 Generals Lee and Jackson in command of the position. We 
 stopped near Ashland, twenty-seven miles north of Richmond. 
 Snow was on the ground, and it was very cold. John Duran and 
 Bob Holloway had just come in. They were in a fine talking 
 humor. I think they found some apple-jack somewhere, for they 
 were full of new ideas. It was after dinner; John said, "Jerry, 
 I am hungry, I want something to eat." "Well, John," replied 
 Jerry, "the boys eat everything up." "The devil, you say; where 
 are my peas?" "I cooked them and they eat them." "That's a 
 
—12— 
 
 devil of a tale to tell. I carried them peas forty miles, and now 
 I come in hungry, nearly starved, and. not a pea left." I will not 
 mention the balance he said, for it would not be very edifying to 
 church people. Jerry Caddell, Jack Hill and Stokes were killed 
 in the ditches at Petersburg. While there, General Lee and his 
 staff came along with an instrument trying to make a calculation 
 of the distance to the Federal batteries, and one of our men said 
 to them, "Mister, how far can you see through that thing?" "Oh, 
 I can see a long ways," was the reply. "Well," I wish you would 
 look through that thing and tell us how far it is to the end of this 
 war." 
 
 We left Ashland and traveled on to Eichmond. Snow had been 
 falling all the time. Some of the men were almost barefooted, and 
 as they traveled they left blood in their tracks. We didn't know 
 where we were going or what we were going to do. I supposed 
 we were going to have another killing, but I didn't think many of 
 us were fat enough for market. We traveled on from Eichmond 
 to Petersburg; snow was still falling. We were cold and hungry, 
 but we felt that we needed rest and sleep more than anything else. 
 When we stopped we raked away the snow, spread our blankets 
 and bunked up three and four together. The next morning we 
 were covered with snow. At roll call two of our men were miss- 
 ing, Harris and Terrell. About 10 o'clock in the day somebody 
 stepped on them ; they were covered with snow about ten inches 
 deep. We cleared away the snow and raised the old tent cloth 
 and then the blankets, then a puff of smoke went up into the air. 
 and there they lay, sound asleep. We remained at Petersburg a 
 few days and then moved on, finally stopping near Suffolk, on the 
 Nanceman river. Here we lost Captain Turner of the Fifth Texas, 
 and Terrell of our company, Irving «to take a gunboat. 
 
 There was a line of rifle pits about two hundred and fifty yards 
 in front of the Federal batteries. There was a call for volunteers 
 to go into these pits ; I was one to volunteer. We had to go in at 
 night and come out at night; ten or twelve men in a pit and a 
 bundred and twenty-five rounds of cartridges to each man. Now, 
 these breastworks in front of us had barrels, filled with sand, on 
 top of them, with just enough room between them for a musket, 
 and when we could not see daylight between the barrels of sand 
 that was the time to shoot. T don't remember now whether it 
 
—13— 
 
 was my first or second day in the pit, but it was about 3 o'clock 
 in the evening when one of the Federals shot at me, struck my hat 
 brim, and took a small piece off my right ear ; this was a close call, 
 but a miss is as good as a mile. We were watching them carry 
 some fellow away on a litter when one of our men cried : "Look- 
 out, hoys; that old cannon will go off directly." We just had time 
 to back ourselves up against the front side of the pit when boom 
 went the cannon, and a shell about the size of a lamp post burst 
 a little in front of us. A piece of it struck the back part of my hat 
 brim and shaved the breast of my jacket — another close call. An- 
 other piece struck the ground about ten feet in front of the pit. 
 digging a. hole deep enough to bun* a horse, and rolling about 
 two wagon-loads of dirt in on us. I can remember that we had to 
 rake the dirt off a man named Holms. T never saw a man more 
 excited than be was; he thought we were all dead. As for myself, 
 I never thought I would live to see the sun go down. I don't re- 
 member of ever seeing Holms again, as he belonged to a different 
 company, but I am satisfied it is the last time he ever volunteered 
 to go into a rifle pit within two hundred and fifty yards of the 
 batteries. It settled it with me; I thought if I did what I was 
 ordered to do after that, that would be enough. T think we left 
 Suffolk during March or April, 1863, and went back to Peters- 
 burg and Richmond, and then went north and joined General Lee 
 somewhere on the Rappahanock. Then the whole army, with 
 Stuart's cavalry, started north. We all knew we would, soon have 
 another big killing. 
 
 Nothing of importance happened on the march ; plenty of rain, 
 creeks all up and a hard time on the gray-hacks. Not many young 
 men of this generation know what a gray-back is, but if they had 
 been in General Lee's army one month without changing their 
 clothing they would know the meaning of the word. General 
 Jackson had gone to his long home and General A. P. Hill took 
 bis place. We crossed the Potomac river at Williamsport. Md., on 
 the 26th of June, 1863. Here we took a lot of government stores 
 from the Federals, and among other things a lot of whisky. It 
 was rolled out on the hill, the. heads knocked out of the barrels, 
 and issued to men by the cup full. I don't suppose the oldest 
 man living in America ever saw as many drunk men at any one 
 time. It was all the officers could do to hold them down; they 
 
—14— 
 
 were full of new ideas. Colonel Manning of the Third Arkansas 
 was very strict with his men, and he tried to carry out army reg- 
 ulations. "Take that man and dip him in the creek," he com- 
 manded. "Now set him up on his feet and see if he can walk." 
 The man staggered a little and fell down. "Dip him in again." 
 All the other officers had all they could do to keep the men from 
 fighting. 
 
 We traveled on and stopped at Gieencastle, Pa. General Lee 
 issued orders to the men not to leave their commands, as they were 
 now in the enemy's country, and not to depredate on the citizens. 
 We traveled on through Chambersburg ; the houses were all closed 
 and the women waved the Stars and Stripes at us. We moved on 
 a short distance and then stopped and struck camp. The people 
 here were all Dunkards. They seemed to think more of their stock 
 than they did of themselves; they had a very fine barn, but lived 
 in a very ordinary looking house. I was put on guard at one of 
 these houses, and stood at the gate all day to keep the men from 
 depredating on them. A woman called me in to dinner, which 
 was one of the finest meals T ever sat down to. The old lady re- 
 marked : "Oh. this cruel war! I just wish you men with your 
 muskets could get them big fellows in a ring and stick your bayo- 
 nets in them and make them fight it out. You could settle it in a 
 few minutes." I was young then and had never given the sub- 
 ject a sober thought, but since. 1 have often thought of that old 
 woman's remarks. Of course, we all know now, for we have some 
 experience in war, that if all the leadera and men who make war- 
 speeches and excite the people, knew that in case of war they 
 would have to pick up their gun and help to fight the battles and 
 take their chances along with the men, there would not be many 
 wars. They would adopt Dr. Franklin's plan — raise the money 
 and pay for the territory or property in question rather than go 
 to war. 
 
 We traveled on and soon heard cannonading and knew that the 
 ball had opened. Late in the afternoon we heard that our column 
 had had a fight with the Federals. This was the first day's fight 
 at Gettysburg. I always thought it was on the 2d of July, but in 
 order to agree with everybody else T will call it the 1st. of July, 
 1863. By sun-up the next day we passed over the battle-ground 
 and saw the dead and wounded, and we could see our artillery in 
 
—15— 
 
 front of us, all unlimbered and in battle array; flags flying and 
 men going in every direction. About 4 o'clock in the afteroon, 
 I understand, we were on the right of General Lee's army; the 
 line of battle was seven miles long. Sam Miller and I left the 
 ranks to get canteens of water for our company, and I never saw 
 Sam any more until the war was over; he was captured and sent 
 to Fort Delaware. Mat Beasley was ordered to take Captain Por- 
 ters old company, from Huntsville, into the fight. They had 
 never gone into a fight and came out with a captain or lieutenant. 
 We all gathered around Mat and said to him, "Good-bye, you are 
 gone now." Bob Crawford said : "I am sorry for you, but I 
 can't help you any." He was the only captain that ever came out 
 alive with that company. Moving slowly we entered a valley in a 
 wheat field. We could see the Federals on the hills to our left, 
 and the Stars and Stripes waving at us. About this time a shell 
 from the Federal batteries came along th rough our lines and cut 
 a man's head off ; his name was Floyd, from San Antonio ; I was 
 within about forty steps of him. Just then the command was 
 given to "forward !" It was 300 or 400 yards to the foot of the 
 hill, on which bordered a rock fence. When we were forty or 
 fifty steps from this fence, the Federal batteries on the hill turned 
 loose at the fence with solid slbot, and rocks were flying in every 
 direction. This scattered our men; many of them were killed, 
 wounded and captured. We were right in front of the battery. 
 No time for shining shoes. So great was the confusion that 1 
 have no recollection of passing over the fence. I can remember 
 when I was about half way up the hill I stopped behind a big 
 rock to load my gun; I could see Captain Reilly's battery a little 
 to our right, and he was cleaning off the top of that hill. There 
 was a solid blaze of fire in front of bis battery. Right here, as 
 well as I can remember. Bill Smith fell: he was a son of Tom 1. 
 Smith, an old pioneer, after whom Smith county, Texas, was 
 named, lie left his wife with her father, W. H. Mitchell, at the 
 head of Richland mid Chamber's creek, ten miles west of Millford. 
 Ellis county, Texas, and never saw her any more, and I doubt if 
 she ever knew what became of him. When we reached the battery 
 at the top of the hill, the men had all left. Some dead were lying 
 around, I don't remember how many. Harris of our company was 
 in front of me. He put his hand on the cannon and was looking 
 
—16— 
 
 over the hill. The cannon was lying on a rock, I think, and the 
 wheels behind the rock. I could hear the minnie balls going over 
 our heads. 1 said to him : "Hold on, Harris, we are by ourselves; 
 wait till the balance come up." "Oh, I want to see where they 
 have gone," replied Harris, "they are not far off." About that 
 time a shell burst in front of us and a piece of it went through 
 his breast, and it seemed to me that I could run my arm through 
 that man's body. His face turned as white as cotton, and strange 
 to say, he turned around and tried to walk in that condition, but 
 fell over and was dead in less than five mnutes. His people lived 
 somewhere in Virginia, but I don't know their address. Now I 
 could see the Third Arkansas to our left, and could hear Colonel 
 Manning's voice; then I saw three or four hundred Federals throw- 
 down their guns and surrender to them. I saw General Hood 
 walking down the hill holding his arm. 1 understood his arm was 
 broken above the elbow and four inches of the bone taken out. By 
 daylight the next morning we had a line of battle on top of that 
 hill; we lay there all day. About 12 o'clock in the day. 1 heard 
 firing in our rear. I saw a house on fire, and thought we were 
 surrounded and would be captured, but I soon learned that a 
 regiment of Federal cavalry was trying to destroy General Lee's 
 ammunition train, which was protected by two regiments of in- 
 fantry. The Federals succeeded until they were right in among 
 the wagons, then the infantry closed in on them, and I don't think 
 a man escaped ; the colonel refused to surrender, and shot himself. 
 Then commenced an artillery duel. General Lee had two hun- 
 dred and twenty-five pieces of artillery, and he turned all of it 
 Loose on the Federal lines, and 1 suppose the Federals had as 
 many or more to reply with. Just imagine what a thundering 
 noise all these cannon made, all firing, you might say at once, 
 to say nothing about the loss of life and property! I never did 
 believe that any man knewt the number of armed men engaged on 
 both sides at the Rattle of Gettysburg, hut I will give it as my 
 opinion, from what I could see and hear, there must have been, 
 all told. Federals and Confederates, at least 175,000 men. and 
 the number of killed, wounded and captured, on both sides, be- 
 tween 40,000 and 45,000 men. It has been forty years now, and 
 I don't remember the names of my own eompany that were lost, 
 much less the army. We lost our lieutenant colonel. Carter, of 
 
—17— 
 
 the Fourth Texas, and I heard that Hood's Brigade lost 500 or 
 600 men. About 3 or 4 o'clock in the evening of the third day 
 at Gettysburg we were still in line of battle on the hills; I don't 
 know enough about the country to say whether it was Cemetery 
 Ridge, Little Round Top or what it was. The Federals made a 
 charge and our left gave way. We fell back in the valley and 
 formed in line of battle. I heard the cavalry horses and the horns. 
 "Look out, boys!" some one shouted; "get ready for a cavalry 
 charge." But for some reason they never came. 1 suppose their 
 prudence and judgment got the best of them. I know nothing 
 about the cavalry service, but I know it's a hard matter to get a 
 lot of cavalry to charge a line of infantry. They know it's a 
 serious matter, for many of them will go to their long homes when 
 they try it. It began to get dark and commenced raining. The 
 sergeant ordered me to go back on the side of the mountain on 
 picket; Lieutenant Mills of our company was with us. Lieutenant 
 Pugh Fuller, Fifth Texas, from Houston, and I sat down on a 
 big rock. We were compelled to keep up a strong picket line all 
 night. Dead men were all around us, and it rained all night. 
 It was as dark as a nigger's pocket. I was sleepy, hungry and 
 tired. I could feel the gray-backs moving around. I knew it 
 would take a dose of red pepper occasionally and somebody to 
 stick pins in me all night to keep me awake, but it would not do 
 to go to sleep here. Between midnight and day I was nearly dead, 
 completely exhausted. I lost all feeling of fear or duty and be- 
 gan to nod a little. Lieutenant Mills came along and tapped me 
 on the shoulder and said : "Don't go to sleep here." But if I 
 had known that I would be shot the next minute, it would have 
 been all the same with me. But Mills was an old neighbor and 
 friend, and he said nothing about it, but it would have been a 
 serious matter with me if he had reported me. At daylight Gen- 
 eral Lee's army moved off and left the battlefield of Gettysburg. 
 About 8 or 9 o'clock he came riding along, and the men began 
 to wave their hats and dheer him. He simply raised his hat, rode 
 along, and said nothing. He was plain, simple and unassuming 
 in his manners, and never encouraged anything of this kind. We 
 all wanted to show to him that we had not lost confidence in him, 
 and he understood it that way. General Lee was a man who had but 
 little to say to anybody. He always looked to me like he was griev- 
 
—18— 
 
 ing about the want of men and means to carry out his plans. Pat- 
 rick Henry defines it as "the illusions of hope, looking for something 
 that we have lost and hope for, but may never find.'' About this 
 time a copy of Harper's Weekly has a picture of General Eobert 
 E. Lee, and says that, "Although he was educated at the expense 
 of the government he is now trying to destroy; he is looked 
 upon by the eyes of the world as master of the arts of war." 
 
 We passed through Hagerstown between midnight and day, 
 crossed the Potomac and went down through Virginia to Rich- 
 mond; there we shipped for Bragg's army. We stopped at Well- 
 don, N. C, which is a junction of railroads ; here there were a lot 
 of North Carolina men on another train going south. There must 
 have been a thousand barrels of resin on the ground, and we began 
 to throw resin at the tar-heels. One of them asked: "Have you 
 got any good tobacco?" "No," we replied, "but we have one of 
 the best chaws of resin ever you saw." About that time we could 
 hear their guns click-click-click. It was all the officers could do 
 to stop it; if they hadn't intervened there would have been blood 
 shed right there. We started west and traveled north through 
 North Carolina. The train was heavily loaded and we traveled 
 slow. Some of us were on top of the cars; one fellow playing a 
 fiddle, another fellow dowu'in the car blowing a horn, all happy 
 as lords, yet knowing at the same time that we were going right 
 into another big killing and that many of us would go to our long 
 homes. We traveled to Atlanta, Ga., and then to a point near 
 Dalton. 
 
 It was Thursday afternoon, September 16, 1863; rations were 
 issued to us and we commenced cooking. We could hear cannon- 
 ading, but it was a long way off. We soon received orders to make 
 preparations to move, and we traveled all that night. The next 
 day, Friday, about 10 o'clock, we ran into some Federal cavalry, 
 and knocked some of them off their horses; some of our men se- 
 cured some new cavalry hats, but they afterward lost them at the 
 night fight at Missionary Ridge. Bill Calhoun, Fourth Texas, 
 from Austin, came into camp with an old cap on. "Bill, where 
 is your hat?" asked one of the boys. "Oh, it belonged to a gen- 
 tleman from Iowa," answered Bill, "and he came after it." We 
 traveled all day Friday, halting some time during the night. 
 Saturday morning we continued our march, and about 3 o'clock 
 
—19— 
 
 in the afternoon of tihe 17th or 18th of September, 1863, we were 
 near the center of the Federals' line of battle. The booming of 
 cannon and roaring of musketry commenced on both sides. We 
 moved up in line of battle; Cheatham's division (Tennessee 
 troops), I think, were in front of us, and I understand there were 
 two lines behind us, Cleburne's and Hindman's, making four lines 
 of battle in front of the Federals. We were ordered to halt and 
 lie down. Shot and shell were coining through the woods from 
 the Federal batteries; Cheatham's men coming out wounded in 
 every way. Occasionally an artilleryman came out with his swab 
 on his shoulder, showing that he had lost his battery. About this 
 time two negroes met near me, one going in, the other coming out. 
 The one coming out said : "Where you gwine ?" "I am gwine 
 to carry Captain (somebody) his dinner/' the negro answered. 
 "'You are the biggest fool nigger I ever saw. Dat man's dead. I 
 spect I don't know what the white folks thinking about, nohow; 
 the way they are killin' one another now, there won't be nobody 
 left, and I don't know what they want with the country after 
 everybody is dead." At this moment a shell from the Federal 
 batteries came along, cutting the timber down in front of it. The 
 two negroes dropped to the ground filled with terror. "Now, 
 just look at dat !" continued one of the negroes. "Any man or 
 set of men dat will shoot such things as dat at folks, and den talk 
 about Christianity, dey is got no raisin' and is black-hearted. Just 
 look how de men is coram' out shot 1 ': You just ought to be up 
 yonder where I'se been; some of them on de ground hurt so bad 
 they can't walk, some dead ; don't talk to me 'bout war. I done 
 seen enough now." About the time he finished saying this an- 
 other shell came whizzing along. "Look here !" he cried, "we'd 
 better get away from here; dar's gwine to be some dead niggers 
 right here." And that was the last I saw of them. 
 
 Of course. I knew we would soon be ordered into the fight and 
 that some of us would never come out. I walked up to Tobe Riggs, 
 of our company. He had never missed a battle or roll call. He 
 was a cousin of mine. He had been having chills and looked bad. 
 "Tobe," I said to him, "you ought not to go into this figlht; the 
 doctor will excuse you." "Oh, I'm all right," he replied. I could 
 say no more. Just then the command was given: "Attention, cap 
 your pieces, forward, guide center, mareh ; give way to the right, 
 
—20— 
 
 give way to the left." When we readied Cheatham's line, about 
 two hundred and fifty yards distant, we found them in the edge of 
 an old field. They were all behind trees, but so many of them had 
 been killed and wounded that it looked more like a picket line than 
 a line of battle. They yelled for joy when they saw us coming; 
 they expected to all be killed right there. We did not take time to 
 exchange compliments. As well as 1 can remember, the Federal 
 lines were about two hundred and fifty yards off, and we made no 
 halt, but passed through Cheatham's lines, and I think they joined 
 us, and as soon as the Federals discovered our approach they gave 
 us a salute by waving the Stars and Stripes at us, in order to ridi- 
 cule the idea of us coming toward them. Then they emptied their 
 guns at us, and it seems that every third or fourth man in our line 
 was cut down. Billie Carroll and Tobe Biggs both fell not over 
 five or six feet from me. We lost Dock Childers and Chisum Wal- 
 ker, but they did not fall so near me; but all four of them were of 
 Winkler's old company, from Corsicana, Texas. I suppose it we 
 had stopped there and given the Federals time to reload their 
 guns, they would have killed the rest of us; but we moved on to 
 them with loaded guns. We broke their lines; I don't know 
 what their loss was, but there were dead and wounded Federal 
 soldiers in every direction. After we broke through their line I 
 ran back to see What had become of Biggs. I found that his leg 
 was broken at the knee joint. Billie Carroll, who was lying near 
 Biggs, was dead. I lifted Tobe up on his feet; of course, it was 
 painful. His face was as white as cotton. I found Abe Bogers, 
 of Martin's company, from Henderson county, Texas near Tobe; 
 he was shot in the instep of his foot, and was making a great 
 deal more noise than Tobe. I placed him up on his feet and 
 walked between him and Tobe some two or three hundred yards, 
 and turned them over to Dr. Jones, surgeon of the Fourth Texas 
 regiment, and never saw them any more. I went back and joined 
 my company, bait the Federals had disappeared. I sat down be- 
 side a wounded Indiana man, and he asked me for some water. 
 I gave him my canteen and talked to him a few minutes. There 
 was a dead man lying near him. I opened the dead man's knap- 
 sack and proceeded to read his letters; he must have had forty or 
 fifty, mostly from women in the State of Indiana. In one it seems 
 he had been boasting about their great victory at Gettysburg. She 
 
—21— 
 
 answered him and said : "You men in the army seem to consider 
 it a great victory for the Federals at the battle of Gettysburg, but 
 if you could only be at home now and see the widows and orphans, 
 made so by the battle of Gettysburg, you would not consider it 
 much of a victory." (The battle we had just passed through was 
 the battle of Chickamauga, and, as well as I can remember, it 
 was Saturday, the 18th of September, 1863. The Kansas, Illinois 
 and Indiana men were in front of us, and they could stand killing 
 better than any men I ever saw.) I was very much interested in 
 reading these letters, but I heard some one on a horse approach- 
 ing behind me. I turned around, and found it was General Hood 
 sitting on his horse looking at me. "Well," he said, "you didn't 
 get hurt!" "No, sir," I replied. "How did your regiment come 
 out?" he asked. "We lost a great many men," I answered, "but 
 I don't know how many." "Well, I am very sorry to hear it," he re- 
 plied, and rode off. When the war commenced, Hood was ap- 
 pointed colonel of our regiment (the Fourth Texas), and he knew 
 us all by sight, but could not call our names. He was a social, 
 kind-hearted man, but a little impulsive at times. He would often 
 walk up to me and shake hands with me and talk to me, but never 
 knew my name. He was different from most of the old army 
 officers. He recognized the fact that most of the men in the Con- 
 federate army were good, respectable citizens at home, and that 
 it was public spirit and sense of duty that caused them to be there. 
 General Hood could get order out of confusion on a battle-field in 
 less time and apparently with less trouble than any man I ever 
 saw. I can remember that there was an Indian who went out with 
 us to Virginia ; the rattle of musketry he stood as well as any of us 
 but whenever the artillery turned loose he would give a whoop 
 and run like a. turkey. "Too much for Injun," he would say. At 
 the battle of Seven Pines General Hood came along the line, and 
 this Indian was guarding some prisoners. "What are you keeping 
 those prisoners standing there for?" questioned General Hood. 
 "Going to take them clown in the woods and kill them," was the 
 reply. "No you are not going to do any such thing," said General 
 Hood. "Sergeant,'' he continued, "take these prisoners to the 
 rear." 
 
 Saturday night, the 18th of September, at Chickamauga, we all 
 lay down in line of battle. We could hear the Federals cutting 
 
—22— 
 
 flown trees and building breastworks, and we knew that we would 
 have to get up the next morning and take those breastworks re- 
 gardless of cost, and with that vast army in front of us, and they 
 behind the breastworks, we know that it was a serious matter. By 
 sunup Sunday morning, the 19th, we were in line of battle. Gen- 
 eral Longstrcet had just come up. and I could see him and other 
 officers riding up and down the line, and I knew from this that 
 we would soon have another big killing. About 8 or 9 o'clock the 
 command was given: "Attention, forward, guide center, march." 
 Jack Massie took hold of me and said : "You get by the side of 
 me; when you fall I want that watch you have got on." Bob Craw- 
 ford said : "I want his boots." We moved forward, and when we 
 reached the first line of breastworks, which was composed of trees 
 and parts of houses, the Federals were on the retreat. Shot and 
 shell were flying in every direction; minnie balls could be heard 
 whizzing through the air, and the roar of artillery was deafening. 
 About this time I fell to the ground. This settled it with me, and 
 I have no recollection of what happened after that. When I re- 
 covered I was lying in a hospital tent. Wounded men were all 
 a round me. I turned over and Jack Massie was right beside me. 
 T -aid to him: "Is that you, Jack?" "Yes," he answered, "my 
 leg's cut off; Tobe Riggs died a few minutes ago." They had cut 
 Tobe's leg off, giving him chloroform, and he never woke up. I 
 had no idea what was the matter with me; I was bloody, sick and 
 nearly dead from thirst, and to say that I had a headache would 
 not express it. I found that a minnie ball had struck me in the 
 t<'in pie, in front of the right ear, and lodged in the back of my 
 head. I turned to Jack and asked him how long I had been 
 there, but I don't remember whether he said Tuesday or 
 Wednesday, but believe he said Wednesday; I was wounded on 
 Sunday. In a few days I was able to walk around a little. T 
 could see muskets lying on the ground in every direction, and a 
 pile of arms and legs, which had been cut off of men. I suppose 
 it would have taken a wagon, and perhaps two, to have carried the 
 arms and legs cut off of men on the battlefield of Chickamauga. 
 In a few days I was sent to Richmond and, I think it was some 
 time in December, the ball was cut out of my head. It was a 
 delicate piece of work, a great deal of risk about it. Dr. Charles 
 Bell Gibson, at the corner of Clay street and Brooks avenue, Rich- 
 
—23— 
 
 mond, Va., performed the operation. Dr. Gibson was considered 
 the finest surgeon in the Confederacy. Of course I was under the 
 influence of chloroform and unconscious and knew nothing of 
 what happened, except what they told me afterward. He cut the 
 skin on the back of my head, found the outside skull bones broken, 
 lifted the pieces of bone and found the ball, about one-half the 
 length of the forefinger, lodged in the back of my head. He was 
 unable to secure a hold on it with his instruments and was com- 
 pelled to use a chisel and hammer. I suppose the old gray jacket 
 and minnie ball can be found among the old war relics at Rich- 
 mond today. It took about three months for my head to heal; 
 Mrs. Oliver waited on me. She washed the hole with a syringe 
 .and warm soap suds and water every twenty-four hours, for nearly 
 three months; had to keep the place open so that it would heal 
 inside first. The doctor said if it was let alone it would heal out- 
 side in a few days and inflammation would set in and kill me. 
 Mrs. Oliver, of whom I speak, I think, is long since in her grave. 
 She saved my life several times, and my bones today would be in 
 the sod of old A^irginia had it not been for her. She carried me 
 through one long spell of sickness in the winter of 1861, and twice 
 afterward, when I was wounded. And I am not the only Con- 
 federate soldier she waited on. I heard General Hood say of her : 
 "Mrs. Oliver, I have often heard my men speak of you in very 
 high terms, and I consider it my duty to thank you for your kind- 
 ness/' Our women have often proven themselves heroines in war 
 as well as peace. I have often seen them, born and reared in 
 luxury, who had never seen a wounded man before, pass through 
 hospitals, waiting on the patients, and the sight of it would make 
 them sick, but they would do all that it was possible for women to 
 do. And today it's the influence of the women over the men that 
 provides the comforts for the old Confederates in their declining 
 years. 
 
 By the month of March, 1864, I was again able to travel. Gen- 
 eral Hood was now in Richmond. He lost his leg at Chickamauga. 
 He wrote a very complimentary letter to the Secretary of War 
 and said I had always done my duty and that I was worthy of pro- 
 motion. The President endorsed the letter and said that "the 
 within communication, and verbal assurance of members of Con- 
 gress, convinces me of his fitness for promotion, and I commend 
 
—24— 
 
 him to your kind attention," signed Jefferson Davis, James A. 
 Seddon. The Secretary of War issued me a captain's commission 
 and transportation west of the Mississippi river. General Hood 
 told me "good-bye," and cautioned me about going inside the Fed- 
 eral lines, that I might get caught when I least expected it and 
 spoil everything. I crossed the Mississippi river and joined Gen- 
 eral Price's army ; I found them at Prairie De Ann, Arkansas. 
 I took part in a few cavalry fights, but this didn't look like soldier- 
 ing to me, so, at the suggestion of General Price and Colonel 
 Campbell, I joined an expedition to go into Missouri to get out 
 some recruits for our army. Now this was a new business to me, 
 and it is attended with a great deal of risk, but I had made so 
 many narrow escapes that I had become perfectly reckless and 
 never thought of danger or that I would ever see the inside of a 
 prison. I think it was now July, 1864. It was raining all the 
 time, and we were compelled to swim all the creeks and rivers. 
 We went from one neighborhood to another and the men knew 
 everybody, so all went well till we were near a place, I think it was 
 Salem, Mo., or Rolla, I forget which. Here there were some Fed- 
 eral soldiers stationed. We camped in the woods, and the next 
 morning, about sunup, we started out to strike the big road, Dick 
 Kitchens and myself in front. I said: "Dick, I don't like this 
 big road ; let's get out of it." "We will leave it directly," replied 
 Dick. Just then we came to a short turn in the road and were 
 within forty or fifty steps of a lot of Federal cavalry, who were 
 coming toward us. They began to pull their pistols on us. The 
 balance of our men behind us heard Dick call out, "Put up them 
 pistols; put up them pistols." We all pulled our guns, as the 
 only thing to lie done was to run the bluff on them. Dick went 
 right at them, with his pistol drawn, and they soon concluded 
 that a good run was better than a bad stand and soon disappeared. 
 Knowing that they would soon soon return with reinforcements, 
 which they did, Dick said to us: "Now let's get away from here." 
 Then it was a run through the brush for five or six miles. I lost 
 my saddle hags, all my clothing ami papers, and fifteen hundred 
 dollars in Confederate money. My horse seemed to take in the 
 situation ami it was all I could do to stick to him: I kept in sight 
 of Dick as I was a stranger in the country. Not a man in our 
 crowd would have surrendered on any kind of terms; the Federals 
 
—25— 
 
 could have taken vis in, because they outnumbered us, but they 
 knew to do this there would be twelve or fifteen of them left on 
 the ground dead or wounded, and none of them wanted to die. In 
 those days the people of Missouri and Kentucky were divided in 
 sentiment, some Union and some Confederate, and they were ar- 
 rayed in deadly combat, and in the State of Kentucky they are 
 still that way to some extent. In Missouri it is reported that the 
 Federals would bum down houses and turn women and children 
 out of doors if any of the men were in the Confederate army. 
 This made the men desperate. I understood there was a heavy 
 reward for Dick Kitchens and several men in our crowd. I then 
 commenced to make propositions to get what men we could to- 
 gether and turn back south ; when I fight I like to have some show 
 for my life. But there was a trip to be made into St. Louis by 
 some one in the crowd, and I was the only man who was not 
 known to the Union people. It is not often that a man will tell 
 anything that is liable to reflect on his character or good sense, but 
 I always acted upon the principle that it was best to tell the truth 
 and shame the devil. I consented, but I must say that I never 
 did anything in my life with more reluctance. As General Hood 
 said to me when we parted in Richmond : "Like all games of 
 chance, if you are successful, you are all right; but if you fail, you 
 are all wrong, and your best friends will doubt your loyalty." 
 When I reached St. Louis I found people I had known all my 
 life and some of them relatives. Of course I soon became recon- 
 ciled, but the trouble Was that I knew too many people. I did 
 what I agreed to do, made a trip over into Illinois, and shipped 
 everything out on the railroad, and when I was making prepara- 
 tions to leave a detective walked up to me and said the provost 
 marshal wanted to see me. Well, I knew then that it was all set- 
 tled with me. I was taken to the Gratiot street prison, and car- 
 ried a ball and chain for six months, not knowing at what minute 
 I might be taken out and shot. I had not been there long before 
 seven men were taken out and executed to retaliate for something 
 that General Marmaduke had done. I knew one of them, Jim 
 Mulligan ; I went to school with him., I think, in Batesville, Ark., 
 in 1854 and 1855. Soon afterward a man by the name of Livings- 
 ion was taken out and hanged as a spy; then another man by the 
 name of Smith. Of course I thought my time would come next, 
 
—26— 
 
 but finally I was taken out and tried 1 by court-martial, charged 
 with being inside the Federal lines, trying to pilot men out of the 
 Federal lines into the -Confederate army, and shipping arms and 
 ammunition through the lines. It was a serious matter with me, 
 and about all the defense I had was on a line with the Irishman 
 before the court for getting drunk and disturbing the peace. The 
 judge said: "Now, Pat, are -you guilty or not?" "I don't know, 
 indeed, Mr. Judge, till I hear the evidence/' was the reply. Not 
 having any proof I was sent to the old penitentiary at Alton, 111., 
 to be confined there until the close of the war. 
 
 Now 1 am a convict, not entitled to exchange or parole. I have 
 lost my citizenship and the respect of all my friends and relatives. 
 After about nine months' confinement and hard living my consti- 
 tution gave way and I suffered with congestion of the lungs. The 
 doctor said the next spell would take me off. When I was re- 
 leased from prison the Confederacy had about gone to pieces. It 
 was all over — the chapters read and the story told. I have left 
 out many incidents and names for want of a better memory and 
 better opportunities. This all happened forty years ago, and I 
 can only state everything according to the best of my recollection, 
 and I have no further explanation to make. But I hope Ibis nar- 
 rative is sufficient to show to the young men and women of our 
 country and future generations what a horrible thing war is. As 
 for the fate of John Wilkes Booth, who killed President Lincoln, 
 it was something that the Confederates were not implicated in. 
 Bob Hollway told me that when General Lee surrendered he went 
 to his home at Bowling Green, Va., on the Bappahannock river, 
 about fifteen miles below Frederickburg. He had only been at 
 home a few days when a tobacco barn was burned down one night 
 about a mile and a half from him. The next day he went over 
 there and found nothing but a pile of ashes, which were sur- 
 rounded by a pole fence, and in one corner of the fence was a pile 
 of straw and leaves, and here he found an opera glass with the 
 name of J. Wilkes Booth engraved on it. He took it home with 
 him, and the news soon went to Washington and some officers came 
 down and took it away from him. So that ought to settle the 
 question. Another incident just after the surrender, Hutch Berry 
 tells me that not being able to get back to Texas, John Duran and 
 himself started out on foot to make their way down into North 
 
—27— 
 
 Carolina, where they both had relative?. On the way they stopped 
 near a place where there were some Federal soldiers camped. 
 After some deliberation on the subject, Hutch went in at night 
 and confiscated two good horses for John and himself to ride, 
 and at daylight there was a good wide space between them and 
 where they found the horses. At the last reunion of Hood's Bri- 
 gade at Marlin, Texas, June 27th, Hutch told me that John has 
 never settled with him for that horse. I noticed an article in the 
 Cincinnati Enquirer of recent date, from Mrs. Longstreet, in de- 
 fense of General Longstreet's conduct at Gettysburg. It is all 
 honorable and right in the woman to try and defend the character 
 of her husband, who is now in his grave. I was in General Long- 
 street's command for a long time, and was under him in the Bat- 
 tle of Gettysburg, but, as I can remember it now, it was a right 
 busy time with me, going up that mountain, the Federal batteries 
 shooting into the rock fence in front of us, rocks flying in every 
 direction, the air full of shot and shell, and men falling all around 
 me. I had no time to look around and see what General Long- 
 street or any one else was doing, for I had all the business on hand 
 that I could attend to, but my version of the matter from what 
 I could see and learn then and afterwards is very different from 
 the opinion that seems to prevail among good people today. It 
 may not be correct and I have no argument now to make with any- 
 body about it. As I have already stated, I was wounded at 
 Chickamanga, sent to Richmond, and was there over five months, 
 and General Hood was in Richmond at the same time. I often 
 saw him and talked with him, and on one occasion, I think it was 
 in the month of January or February, 1864, at General Smith's 
 house. We had been talking over the battles of the war, when 
 Gettysburg was mentioned. Not thinking it prudent to ask him 
 any direct question, I said to him that it was always a mystery to us 
 that if we had those hills to charge, why we were held so long in that 
 valley. He hesitated a moment, and said: "Well, that was one 
 place I went into with a great deal of reluctance, and I told Gen- 
 eral Lee that I could put my division in there, and would if I was 
 ordered to do so, and lose a lot of my men and accomplish noth- 
 ing." This much I have a distinct recollection of, the balance of 
 his talk was in a general way and I do not remember all he said, 
 but I think he said that General Lee called a council of his officers 
 
—28— 
 
 to discuss the situation. General A. P. Hill, who succeeded Gen- 
 eral Jackson, proposed a general movement all along the line of 
 all the infantry and artillery. General Lee said we were too late 
 by about twenty-four hours for such a move as that. General 
 Longstreet then proposed a flank movement. General Lee said 
 that with that vast army in front of us we would not be able to 
 protect our wagon trains, so they separated without any settled 
 plan of action, and General Lee, after reviewing everything, de- 
 cided to assume all responsibility himself ; but that took time, and 
 that accounted for the delay. Whether that is correct or not, the 
 most sensible view to take of the matter is that if General Long- 
 street was guilty of disobeying General Lee's orders, it is strange 
 that a man of General Lee's sense and ideas of discipline and 
 good order never noticed it and did not make any complaint and 
 have General Longstreet removed long before the battle of Gettys- 
 burg, to say nothing about what happened then and afterwards. 
 Pete Walton ays that what we don't know about history in this 
 world is more important than what we know. But it may not ap- 
 ply in this case. As for the cause of the war, we all know that it 
 was giving to the general government too much authority over the 
 States without any regard for the interests or rights of the people 
 of those States. Centralized power, or, in other words, an im- 
 perial form of government, contrary to the Constitution and sys- 
 tem of laws handed down to us by our forefathers, when this gov- 
 ernment was established, and now we have the vast accumulation 
 of wealth in the hands of a few individuals at the expense of the 
 masses, and this, with the evil designs of politicians, the want of 
 office, its emoluments and luxuries, with the increase of poverty 
 and crime, can result in nothing but riots, strikes, mobs and blood- 
 shed and the final overthrow of the government. Common sense 
 tells us this; the history of the rise and downfall of some of the 
 leading nations of the world tells us this, but it is to be hoped that 
 the people of our country, with all of its varied interests, will be 
 able to understand this subject and overcome all these difficulties 
 in a peaceable and legitimate way, live under one flag and one 
 sentiment, and enjoy the blessing of liberty, peace and prosperity, 
 with just and equal rights to all and special privileges to none, 
 and the man from the State of Maine can walk up to the man 
 from the State of Texas, shake hands, and say, "We are friends." 
 
TEN YEARS IN SOUTH AMERICA. 
 
 Before we start out on our long journey of nearly eight thou- 
 sand miles, I want to say a few words by way of preface to the 
 young men and women of our country and future generations, and 
 if what I have to say is of any benefit to them I have accom- 
 plished a good part of my mission. It is more or less natural in 
 the whole human family to think that our lot is harder than any- 
 body's, and that there is a better country somewhere else than 
 where we are. And in order to gratify our curiosity and ambition 
 for pleasure and profit we must go there, if possible. There are 
 some countries that offer inducements and advantages over others, 
 of this there is no doubt, but you will find more differences in 
 people than there is in countries, and if all the evils or mis- 
 fortunes that befall the human family were collected together and 
 put into one pile, and then distributed equally between every man, 
 woman and child in the world, we would soon find that we would 
 be better off with the evils or misfortunes that naturally befall 
 us than what we would inherit by such a distribution. And the 
 same rule would apply in the distribution of wealth and the luxu- 
 ries of this life. It would finally go back into its old channel. As 
 some would say: "The money sharks get it all." But in reality 
 it falls into the hands of those who are born with a better sense of 
 financial and business methods. 
 
 We start from New York on the United States mail steamer 
 Advance the 15th of July, 1888. Put in at Newport News on the 
 coast of Virginia to take on the mail and some freight. This is 
 the last land we see in the United States, and for all we know the 
 last that we may ever live to see again. The next port reached is 
 the Island of St. Thomas, one of the Danish West India Islands, 
 five days and nights out from New York; and like all the West 
 India Islands, they are mountains in the ocean, and some of them 
 devilish high ones at that. Now, you would be surprised to see 
 the native women here pick up their baskets that will hold about a 
 bushel, and the little time it takes them to put four or five hun- 
 dred tons of coal aboard the ship at one cent a basketfull. We 
 pass near the Island of Martinique. This is where they have so 
 
—30— 
 
 many volcanoes, and you see so much said in the newspapers about 
 it; it belongs to France. The steamer blows the whistle and the 
 people waive their flags. But having no business, we do not stop. 
 The next port reached is the Island of Barbadoes, about twelve or 
 fifteen miies square, and 1 suppose 200,000 people on it. It lie- 
 longs to England, and is garrisoned by troops. The next port 
 reached is Para, the month of the Amazon, and the first port on 
 the coast of Brazil, a city of something over 50,000 people, about 
 eight degrees south of the equator, and we are now about 3500 
 miles from New York. The principal article of export here I 
 think is India rubber, sugar, rice, tobacco and fine timber. This 
 is not the latitude for coffee nor cotton, as it is too near the 
 equator. It would make fine, large trees, but the coffee beans 
 would decay and fall before they matured, and the same way 
 with cotton. Of course, the cotton would not fall off like the 
 coffee, but it would lie a short staple stuff and only fit for mat- 
 tresses, if anything. Now, from this explanation you can form an 
 idea whether cotton can be produced in a tropical country or not. 
 Another peculiarity about Para, they always have a shower of rain 
 about 12 or 1 o'clock every day, and it's as regular as clockwork, 
 and I don't think that anybody has ever been able to tell the cause 
 of it. When people here make an agreement to meet for any pur- 
 pose, they always say before or after the shuva; shuva is the 
 Portuguese word for rain. So the days and nights are both cool 
 and pleasant; you need a blanket over you at night, or you would 
 not sleep very much. We lay here two days and nights about half 
 a mile from shore. I see people going back and forth in small 
 boats, but when I see the sharks coming up to the top of the water 
 occasionally, I feel better aboard the ship, for they could turn one 
 of them boats bottom side up if they wanted to. They don't look 
 very handsome; the head seems to be the largest part about them. 
 I was talking to an American who said he had been three or four 
 hundred miles up this river, and said that he had seen cane 
 seventy-five feet high, that would hold one quart of water in each 
 joint, and the best water he ever drank. I have seen cane twenty- 
 five and thirty feet high twenty-five hundred miles south of here. 
 It might be of some interest to state that the ouly way you can 
 tell when yon arrive at the mouth of the Amazon is by the muddv 
 
—31— 
 
 water mixing with the ocean, for it is said to be about one hundred 
 and twenty-five miles wide at the mouth. 
 
 The next port reached is Mieanham, a city of about 50,000 peo- 
 ple; not a very important point for trade, but is headquarters for 
 the Catholic church. These people are all Catholics, and you see 
 the likeness of St. John everywhere you go, and a word from the 
 priest is the law with most of them. The next port reached is 
 Purnambuke, or Purnambuico, as we call it. The native pilot 
 comes out to meet us, as they do at all ports. Supposed to be 
 100,000 people here. A natural rock wall surrounds most of the 
 harbor, and the tide coming in and going out rolls over this wall 
 and it can be heard a long ways off; the tide has just gone out, 
 and I can see that the pilot in front of the captain's bridge is very 
 much excited. But fortunately one of the passengers understands 
 his language, and says to the captain: "The pilot says that you 
 are drawing twenty-two feet of water, and the tide has just gone 
 out, and if you don't stop this ship you will get on a sandbar and 
 lose the ship and all the cargo. But if you will wait one hour 
 until the tide comes in, you can then go into port in safety." "Oh, 
 they ought to send some one out here that I can understand." "But 
 the pilot says that if you expect to do business with these people, 
 you must learn the language. You might as well be deaf and 
 dumb as to try to get along in this country without being able to 
 speak and understand the Portuguese or Spanish language." 
 
 The next port reached is Bahia. This city is said to have a popu- 
 lation of over 100,000. It's on a high hill, you might say a moun- 
 tain, and it is impossible to see the city from the deck of the ship. 
 It overlooks a bay that seems to be large enough for all the ships 
 in the world. We anchor out in the bay, and some of the natives 
 come aboard to help discharge the cargo; and, as usual, the mate 
 on the ship is a very cross kind of a man. He says to one of them, 
 "Boll that barrel around here." "No foz moll." "Moll the devil 
 and Tom Walker, roll that barrel around here." No foz moll 
 means, that don't make any difference, but as neither one under- 
 stands the other, it's a stand-off. He then turns around to one 
 of the Irish sailors and says, "Pat, take hold of the end of that 
 rope." "There's no end to it, sir; the end has been cut off.'* 
 That's another stand-off. 
 
 The next port reached is Bio de Janiero, the capital of Brazil, 
 
—32— 
 
 and a city of 800,000 people. It is down under the hills on the bay ; 
 you can only see the top of these hills back of the city on a clear 
 day, for they seem to reach nearly to the skies. You would be 
 surprised to see the number of steamships and sailing vessels com- 
 ing in and going out of these ports; and it seems that not one 
 out of twenty-five carries the United States flag. I find that we 
 are a great people in our own estimation and the United States 
 is a great country, as long as we are in the limits of it; but when 
 we get out of it we are small fry, especially in the matter of trade 
 and commerce. I find that Brazil, from the best information I 
 can gather, with a population of not less than 20,000,000, sells 
 the world over $200,000,000 worth of produce annually; and the 
 most of this vast trade goes to Europe, on account of restrictions 
 in our trade regulations. 
 
 The next port reached is Santos, the end of our voyage, and 
 about G000 miles from New York ; the next is Paranagua, and the 
 next St. Catharine. You will notice Brazil fronts on the At- 
 lantic Ocean nearly 4000 miles, and nearly three thousand back — 
 about the same amount of territory as the United States — but will 
 support more people, because it's a more productive country and 
 a better climate. Much of its territory has never been explored 
 by a white man. Santos is not a very large place, and I don't sup- 
 pose ever will be, on account of its unhealthy location. The popu- 
 lation is about twenty or twenty-five thousand. As to whether it 
 ships more coffee than Bio, I do not know; but it will always be 
 considered one of the leading coffee ports of the world, as well as 
 other export and import trade which is tributary to it. 
 
 We start out from Santos to San Paulo, a distance of about sixty 
 miles from the coast, and it is said to have a population of 150,000 
 or 200,000, and about 3000 feet above the level of the sea. The first 
 twelve or fifteen miles after leaving Santos is a low, flat coun- 
 try ; then we commence to go up the mountains. Now, you would 
 be surprised to see the cars go up these mountains at the rate of 
 twenty miles an hour. We find stationary engines posted on the 
 side of the railroad every three or four miles with wire cables at- 
 tached, and in this way the cars are drawn up the mountains. 
 But I suppose if one of these cables should break, we would go 
 down this mountain at the rate of an hundred miles an hour, until 
 we jumped the track. Though in all my travels on railroads in 
 
—33— 
 
 Brazil I don't think I ever "heard of a serious accident, In our 
 country, if a train runs off the track and kills and cripples fifty 
 or a hundred people, the wreck is cleared away, the dead are 
 buried, and wounded sent to the hospitals, and it's published in 
 the newspapers, and that's the end of it. But I understand that 
 if such a thing should happen in Brazil, every official connected 
 with the road would go to the penitentiary for life; and for this 
 reason, 1 suppose, we never hear of a railroad accident. I find 
 San Paulo to be an up-to-date city, with all modern improve- 
 ments; at least they seem to keep up with the tide better than most 
 of the Latin race of people; and it seems to be the home of the 
 wealthy and aristocratic element and as. fine a dressed people as 
 you see anywhere. In this, as well as in other cities and towns 
 of Brazil, you find soldiers as well as policemen; and if a wagon 
 or buggy runs over anybody, you see a policeman on the street 
 with his club ready to knock the driver off of bis seat, and for this 
 reason people are seldom hurt on the streets. In our country it 
 is just the reverse; it's almost an everyday occurrence for some 
 one to be hurt on the streets of our cities. Here the rights of the 
 people generally seem to be as well protected as any other country. 
 I find some Americans here, but less than any other nationality. 
 I find another thing that we are not prepared to believe, and that 
 is, less feeling of fellowship among Americans you meet in a 
 foreign country than any other class of people in the world. 
 
 Our diplomatic and consular officers put in their time well and 
 draw their pay; but I have never yet heard of them doing much 
 for their country or people, or asserting their rights or making 
 any effort to improve our trade relations, which is so much needed. 
 These appointments are generally made as a reward for campaign 
 services or some kind of favoritism, without regard for their 
 qualifications or knowledge of the language or people. San Paulo 
 is a junction of railroads and a distributing point for all branches 
 of trade. We go from San Paulo to Campinas, a city of about 
 35,000 people, and another junction of railroads, surrounded by 
 hills, and not a very healthy location; but, like San Paula, trib- 
 utary to many of the large coffee farms. We go from here to 
 Santa Barbara. This is where the Americans settled soon after 
 our Civil War. Most of the^i were from the southern States ; but 
 not many of them are here now; some of them went back to the 
 
—34— 
 
 United States, some died, and others after learning the language, 
 moved to different parts of the country. There is good agricul- 
 tural lands here and level enough to plow, and that attracted the 
 Americans. But it is not a coffee country ; the people turn their at- 
 tention mostly to provision crops and stock, hut a better country for 
 stock is found in other parts of Brazil than this. I was not here long 
 before I noticed about thirty or forty people going along the road 
 on foot, and seeming to be in a great hurry, carrying a dead bodv 
 to a graveyard on a stretcher. They take it by turns; that's the 
 custom of this country. If they live twenty-five miles from the 
 cemetery, they must go there, or to some place where the ground 
 has been blessed by the priest. Then one or two days out of al- 
 most every week is a saint's day: and they firmly believe that 
 snakes will bite them or some serious accident will happen to them 
 if they work on these days. 
 
 It is my purpose to give you some idea of the customs and habits 
 of these people, their methods of doing everything, the realities of 
 life, and the general appearance of the country, its resources, 
 climate and seasons. All from actual observation made in ten 
 years, and in a plain, simple manner, and instead of commenting 
 on reports from newspaper correspondents and others, I will try 
 to add something to it; or in other words, commence where they 
 left off. This, you know, is a progressive world, and as the people 
 of other countries make advances in the way of modern improve- 
 ment, these people try to keep up with the tide ; and it is well they 
 may, for they have as much or more interest at stake, from the 
 simple fact that they have more to do and more undeveloped coun- 
 try than perhaps any other part of the world, and it will finally be 
 a country of vast resources which will interest all classes of people. 
 We are now at Santa Barbara, and it's the month of Septem- 
 ber, 1888. I can hear something that sounds like the whistle of a 
 steamship, and it's a long ways off. I find that it is a native cart 
 — all wood, no iron about it — and will carry about 3000 pounds. 
 The yokes are light; they use small poles and rawhide instead of 
 chains, as we do, and from six to eight yoke of oxen; the axle 
 turns under the frame of the cart instead of the wheels, and it is 
 the friction of the axle under the frame of the cart that makes the 
 noise. We see the driver going along* the road punching the oxen 
 with a little pole that has a sharp nail in the end about an inch 
 
—35— 
 
 long when they don't go to suit him, and says, "Bum, Oh, de 
 arbar." Well, de arbar is their curse word and means, "Oh, the 
 devil/' But an American woman who has just arrived and don't 
 understand their language, says she never saw so many oxen 
 hitched to a wagon in all her life, and they call them all de arbar. 
 Another American woman, who thought she had picked up Portu- 
 guese enough to get along, took her seat at the table of a hotel; 
 she wanted a spoon to stir her coffee, and instead of calling for a 
 kuyey. said she wanted a carvolly, or in other words, she wanted 
 a horse to stir her coffee. Did you ever think of the disadvantage 
 you labor under to be in a country where you don't understand 
 enough of the language to ask for your dinner or a drink of water ? 
 If you never did, you ought to try it once; you will learn some- 
 thing. No difference how well you are educated in your own 
 country, you are nothing here unless you can speak the language; 
 and if you are over 50 years old, you will never learn to speak 
 it or any other foreign language well. If you can speak Spanish, 
 Italian or French, you can learn Portuguese, on account of its 
 similarity. 
 
 It is a notorious and well-established fact in the everyday walks 
 of life, that where one man fails, another, under similar circum- 
 stances, will succeed ; and this fact was plainly demonstrated in 
 two cases which I will refer to. In the year 1865 or 1866 Charles 
 Gunter came to this country from Montgomery, Ala., I under- 
 stand, with more money than any other American, and from all 
 accounts he was a good business man and a good trader in his 
 own country. But here it was a new deal to him; he was too old 
 to learn the language and the strange methods of doing every- 
 thing. The result was he lost his money and died a pauper. 
 While John Cole, a jolly old soul, and about 65 years old, came 
 here from South Carolina. He was a farmer and a man that 
 looked at everything in a plain, practicable and sensible kind of 
 way, and nobody could get any money out of him until he had 
 value received. He succeeded well and made money, but he never 
 learned but one word of the Portuguese language, and that was 
 "Star bum." Everything Was "Star bum" with him. "Star bum" 
 in our language means that is all right. He was a good-natured 
 kind of man, but a very profane man, or wicked man. Some of 
 the natives rode up to his house one day and called him out, and 
 
—36— 
 
 said to him in Portuguese, of course, that the dogs had run a deer 
 through his cotton field and they wanted permission to follow the 
 dogs on their horses. Of course he had no more idea what they 
 were talking about than the man in the moon, but he yelled out 
 at the top of bis voice, "Star bum, Senor! Star bum!" Well, they 
 thought it was all right, so away they went on their horses through 
 the cotton field, knocking the cotton off as they went. Now, what 
 he said to tbeni in English would never do to repeat before a Sun- 
 day school class, but as neither understood the other, it was an- 
 other stand-off. He had one child, a girl, and left her in South 
 Carolina. He had lost his wife. When the girl was old enough, 
 she married, and she and her husband went to Brazil to pay the 
 old man a visit. They had only been there about two weeks when 
 she went to him one day and said, "Father, we want to go back to 
 South Carolina; we don't like this country." He ripped out an 
 oath and said all right. "I will give you $10,000 in gold if you 
 will leave here and never come back." Well, that was "Star 
 bum," for that was what they went after. The next year he sold 
 out and went back to South Carolina, and only lived a short time, 
 but he was nearly 90 years old. 
 
 From Santa Barbara we go to Moggy Miram, Mooshe, as we 
 would pronounce it, with a soft accent on the last syllable. This 
 is anotber junction of the railroad. 1 don't know the population, 
 but from appearances there must be 10,000 or 15,000 people here. 
 Only two men here who can understand one word of our lan- 
 guage. It is a great coffee country and wealthy people living in 
 and around the place. From here we go to Penha., or Penya, as we 
 would pronounce it, the terminus of one of these railroads. Here 
 I see tlie first troop of pack mules I ever saw. It is their principal 
 means of transportation over this mountainous country, where they 
 have no railroads. You see almost every day fifty to one hun- 
 dred pack mules with 250 pounds of coffee to the mule, or the 
 same amount of merchandise, going along the roads to and from 
 market, or to the railroad stations. With some difficulty, on ac- 
 count of my not knowing how to talk, I find one family of Amer- 
 icans here from the State of Mississippi. 
 
 We go from here to Jackitinga in the province, or State, of 
 Minas, or Menus, as they pronounce it. and by accident on the 
 road T find Dr. James Warren, who came to this eountrv in 1865 
 
—37— 
 
 from Nashville, Tenn. Think he said he was a surgeon in the 
 Confederate Army, and find him a very intelligent and social kind 
 of a man. He met me at the door and I said to him that I was 
 an American, just arrived. "Glad to see you, sir, come in. I sup- 
 pose you don't understand the language." "No, sir, not enough 
 to hardly ask for a drink of water." "Well, I have been in this 
 country so long and it is so seldom that I meet an American, I 
 can express myself better in Spanish or Portuguese than I can in 
 English.** Now, according to the custom among all classes of 
 people here (in fact they look upon it as a mark of politeness), 
 the gild conies in with a waiter and some coffee and cakes. You 
 must drink coffee with them, light your cigarette or pipe and 
 smoke; then if you don't know how to talk, you soon feel like it 
 is better to be alone than in such company. We then talk a few 
 minutes, his wife comes in, he speaks to her and tells her that 
 I can speak no Portuguese. She makes a polite bow, and walks 
 out; she is a native, and wealthy, has a large coffee farm, coffee 
 mill, and sugar mill. They have four children, two sons and two 
 daughters, all grown. Dinner is announced; we go in and sit 
 down. The doctor and I talk, and they occasionally ask him what 
 we are talking about. They seem to be very much interested, but 
 don't understand us. Dinner is over, I bid the doc-tor good-bye 
 and travel on to dackitinga. and find some American friends from 
 Texas. 
 
 This is nearly all a mountainous country, more timber on the 
 mountains than there is in our valleys, and much of it is impos- 
 sible to walk through, much less ride through, without a hack 
 knife. The land is mostly red, or Terra de Kose, as they call it. 
 If you find any open country you find more grass on one acre 
 than you ever saw on ten in our country, and much of the tim- 
 bered country the sun never shines on. No winter nor summer, 
 neither hot nor cold. Not frost enough to hardly check the 
 growth of vegtation ; the leaves on the trees green the whole year 
 round. Drouths, snow and ice, and failures in crops is something 
 that is unknown in many parts of Brazil. No muddy water; you 
 never go five miles that you don't cross a beautiful, clear, running 
 stream of water ; in fact, going from the United States to Brazil 
 is like going out of one world into another. Nothing you see re- 
 sembles anything vou ever saw before. Now, to further illustrate. 
 
—38— 
 
 a ship is lying in the bay at liio at night; the moon is shining 
 bright, and one of the Irish sailors says to another : "Now, Mike, 
 do you suppose this is vthe same moon we have in the old country ?" 
 "Oh, what in the devil are you talking about, man, it is a different 
 moon altogether.'* Everything is different in this country. If 
 I remember correctly, Frank Carpenter said, in speaking of our 
 people who traveled over Europe every year for profit and pleasure, 
 to say nothing of the vast amount of money they spend, that they 
 could see more here in one day than they could in a month of 
 Sundays in Europe. Well, I will just raise him a bean, and say 
 a lifetime. I have often thought I would like to see some of our 
 people here who think they have seen heavy timber, and see some 
 parova trees and logs that I have seen lying on the ground here. 
 I think they would give it up. And then there are the different 
 kinds of flowers, fruits, animals, and birds that you see in the 
 virgin forest, that you see in no other country. Parova is a hard, 
 heavy wood; the natives use it for lumber in building houses, and 
 it seems to me it would be the finest timber in the world for cross- 
 ties for railroads, for it is said one of these logs will lie on the 
 ground for fifty years and then be as sound as ever. 
 
 From Jackitinga we go to Sorocaba; about 8000 or 10,000 peo- 
 ple here; then to Boituva. This is not a coffee country; it is 
 mostly stock and provision crops. I see cows here larger than 
 our beef steers, and the largest hogs I ever saw in my life; horses 
 and mules about like ours. Sweet potatoes; you can sit down on 
 one end and roast the other in the fire. Did you ever see a lizard 
 four feet long? T think I have seen them five feet long. I was 
 talking with a young man who came here from Alabama, and 
 asked him if these lizards ever offered to fight. He said you ought 
 to step on their tail once; you will find out then how they fight. 
 He went on to say that when thase people cut down the timber 
 and burn it off to plant, that leaves their holes exposed, and the 
 boys put the dogs after them and cut him off from his hole, and 
 he backs himself up against a log, and if he ever hits the dog one 
 lick with his tail, he not only makes the fur fly, but makes the 
 blood come, and that is the last time that dog will ever bark at a 
 lizard, much less run after him. It is great fun for the boys, but 
 it is rough on the dog. Tbe natives eat these lizards. The meat is 
 
—39— 
 
 white and looks nice, and they say it is "Mouncha hum"; that is, 
 very good. 
 
 We stop at Boituva and make two crops of cotton. The first 
 year we plant the seed, the next year we cut the stalk down, and 
 make more from the stump of the stalk than we did from the seed. 
 We make more cotton with less labor than we do in our country, 
 but the grade is not so good as American cotton. We sell it to 
 the factories at Soroeaba and Tatey at about 2\ cents per pound 
 in the seed, and it is made up into the lower grades of goods. The 
 seed seems to degenerate. The natives plant the seed every three 
 years. I suppose further south the climate is better adapted to it, 
 and will make a better grade of cotton, say in the States of Par- 
 ana, Matagras, and Rio Grande de Sul. These people are making 
 improvements in the culture of cotton as well as everything else. 
 This is south of the equator, and the further south you go the 
 cooler it gets. The coolest weather we have is in the month of 
 July, and the warmest weather is in January. 
 
 We go from Boituva to Botucatu, now the terminus of the Soro- 
 caba railroad, but it has since been extended to Bio Naova, with 
 other branches running into different parts of the country. Botu- 
 cato seems to have a population of 8000 or 10,000 and is a dis- 
 tributing point for trade of all kinds, as well as a junction of 
 railroads. Nearly all a coffee country and a great many wealthy 
 people around the place, and it is mostly a mountainous country 
 and red land. Occasionally you find a campo, or prairie, black 
 land, well watered, and horses and cattle on it. 
 
 We go from Botucatu to San Jao de Itatinga, or Etattinga, as 
 these people pronounce it, and it is like many other parts of the 
 country I have been in; it is almost a solid body of coffee farms, 
 I never had any idea before that there was so much coffee con- 
 sumed in. the world. I understand that the crop of Brazil amounts 
 to about 8,000,000 or 10,000,000 sacks a year. Now, this, at say 
 $15 a sack, then add the India rubber, fine timber, raw sugar, rice, 
 tobacco, guano, and hides, you have an idea what Brazil sells the 
 world, and with the undeveloped country will increase every year. 
 I think you will find that we pay these people $50,000,000 or $60,- 
 000,000 every year for coffee, and if we get anything like a rea- 
 sonable share of this vast trade it seems to me that I could have 
 seen more American goods here in ten years, but Europe con- 
 
—40— 
 
 trols the trade of this country, as well as the banking business, 
 railroads and factories. Italy furnishes a large amount of the 
 labor. This is the situation and will continue to be until our 
 Congress at Washington takes some step to negotiate commercial 
 treaties with this and other countries, with such a uniform system 
 of export and import duties as will compete with other countries 
 in the matter of trade and commerce. But some of our mem- 
 bers of Congress will tell you that if the United States 
 had a Chinese wall one mile high all around it we would 
 not suffer a day for anything, for we have everything we need. 
 That would have been a very good argument one hundred years 
 ago when the products of our country supplied the wants of the 
 people, but it is different now, and with the increase in our popu- 
 lation will be more so hereafter, and not only that, when you hear 
 a man talking that way you can nearly always put it down as a 
 fact that it is either ignorance or lie and his family are provided 
 for in some way out of the public treasury. The best way to make 
 a man show an interest or feeling of fellowship for his country- 
 man, is to take his salary or money away from him, and reduce 
 him to want or moderate circumstances; that will make him so- 
 ciable when everything else fails, or at least he will entertain very 
 different views. I have paid here 20 cents a yard for cotton goods 
 that sell on the New York market for 5 cents; $2.50 for a fifty- 
 pound sack of flour, and $3 for Collins' axes with handles. One 
 of our twodiorse wagons, I think, sells here for $135, and one of 
 our double-turning plows with trace chains and single-trees for 
 $25, and hundreds of other things I could mention. But still this 
 trade is not worth our attention. In this country the government 
 issues the money direct to the people. In our country the banks 
 issue the money and the government endorses the banks and they 
 are called national banks. These people know but little ahout the 
 arts of statecraft or politics, as we understand it. Like all the 
 Latin races, their issues, if they have any, are about men instead 
 of principles. They go through all the formalities of elections, 
 but the officials put out the candidates. The Delegarda is the 
 judge, sheriff, and district clerk. They have about the same 
 road laws as we have. When a man dies, 18 per cent of his prop- 
 erty goes to the government, and when real estate is sold the gov- 
 ernment gets 6 per cent of the purchase money; so there are no 
 
 
—41— 
 
 gtS&eral tax laws like ours. You seldom see the sheriff, tax col- 
 lector, or candidates for office. The price of land depends upon 
 the locality and convenience to market, from 40 cents to $2 an 
 acre. The quality is about the same all over the country. Coffee 
 is checked off twenty feet each way. 325 trees to the acre, and after 
 it is 5 years old is valued at 50 tents a tree until it is 50 years 
 old. Though it is considered a net income to the owner, all this 
 time of say. one year with another, 30 cents or 35 cents a tree. 
 The people have pastures for their cattle and horses and pens for 
 their hogs, so it is not. necessary to have fences around their farms 
 as we do. 
 
 We will now change the subject a little; I want to tell you 
 something about the custom and habits of these people. 1 have 
 already said something about their Saints' days. The 25th of 
 June with them is like the 25th of December with us: it is St. 
 John's day. Sunday is like a Saint's day with them. Then they 
 have their festivals. Among the Carboca, or lower class, you will 
 see the men rig up their pack saddles with two large baskets on 
 each side ; this they call a colgary. They put the children in these 
 baskets. You see the women going along the road on foot before 
 the pack horses, and the men on a horse behind; now they are 
 going to a festival. The wealthy people all ride. They get to- 
 gether in. the towns and cities, run horse races, play cards, fight 
 chickens, send up skyrockets, and yell at the top of their voice, 
 "Viva, A^iva visumhora de arbar"; they run the devil out of the 
 country so the corn and beans will come up and coffee will make 
 more. They drink "pinga" at these festivals, hut they are not 
 much on the fight like our people. Then they are a very polite; 
 if they meet you forty times in a day. they speak to you, and when 
 they go to leave you they tell you, "Bum tellogger," or good-bye. 
 
 I will now tell you how these people plant coffee as well as 
 corn and other provision crops. If a man wants to cut down 
 fifteen or twenty acres of timber to plant, he will go around and 
 invite all his neighbors to a dinner and dance at night, festival. 
 He will get two or three jugs of "pinga." or rum, some flour, 
 meat, sugar, and rice and will pay them say, one milrey each 
 in money. They appoint a day, and they all come in with their 
 forshes and axes, fifty or a hundred of them, if necessary, and 
 cut the timber down. This is in thv month of June or Julv. the 
 
—42— 
 
 dry season of the year, and by September or October, tbe planting 
 season, it's all dry and ready to burn, and such a fire as it makes, 
 with the popping of the cane, I do not think any of our people 
 have ever seen, unless it was a large city on fire. Then it takes 
 five or six days for the ground to cool off. Then they go into it 
 with their corn and pumpkin seed and carvidarys and punch holes 
 in the ground and plant; this is all they do to it. and they make 
 more corn on one acre of ground without hoeing or plowing than 
 I ever saw in our country. Then after the corn is planted, if 
 they want to plant coffee on the land, they check the ground off 
 carefully with a chain twenty feet each way, and put up a stake. 
 They dig a hole with a. grubbing hoe at these stakes about ten 
 inches deep. Next the "fato," or overseer, on the place comes 
 along and drops a. few coffee . beans in these holes and rakes a 
 little dirt, on them, and lays some sticks over the top of the holes 
 for shade; then it is four or five months before the coffee comes 
 up, and until it begins to make limbs it looks like cotton. In 
 two years they are waist high ; in three years you see a little coffee 
 on them, but not enough to pay until they are five years old. All 
 this time corn, beans and other provision crops are planted in the 
 coffee land by the hands who treat the coffee. They commence to 
 gather coffee in June or July, and finish in December or January. 
 and they pay from 10 to 15 cents a bushel for gathering. They 
 take a brush, broom, or rake and clean off the ground tinder the 
 trees and strip the coffee off on the ground, and by the use of iron 
 sifters they get the rocks and dirt out of the coffee, put it all in a 
 pile at the end of the row, and when they have forty or fifty 
 bushels the cart comes along, measures up the coffee and gives 
 them a ticket. Saturday evening the bell taps and the boss counts 
 their tickets and gives them their money, less what they are due 
 the boss for provisions. Sunday they go to town, play cards, run 
 horse races, get drunk, or do anything they want to do. Gather- 
 ing coffee is not as hard work as gathering cotton. The natives 
 often plant tobacco in the young coffee fields, and here you see 
 the largest tobacco leaves you see anywhere in the world. Coffee 
 generally blooms out in December, and the blooms and leaves re- 
 semble a honeysuckle more than anything I can think of. It is a 
 beautiful sight to see 100,000 coffee trees in full bloom; then if 
 they have three davs without a hard rain and wind this will give 
 
 
—43— 
 
 the bloom ample time to set on, and they get a full crop, other- 
 wise the crop is short. Coffee generally makes a full crop one 
 year and a half a crop the next. The cause of this I do not know, 
 and don't suppose any one else does. If the boss comes along and 
 finds an orange tree or lemon, or sweet potato vines in his coffee, 
 he makes the hands chop them down — don't want them in his 
 coffee. You often see an orange or lemon tree loaded with nice 
 fruit dumped into the creek. The nicest fruit you find in the 
 virgin forest is the "jackatacarba." It is black and slick and 
 about the size of a hen egg, and sticks to the limb or body of the 
 tree until it is ripe. Then there is the "almasha" and bananas, 
 the largest you ever saw, and "buckichuse," or pineapples, as we 
 call them. 
 
 I never will forget the night of the 13th of September, 1892, in 
 Brazil. They had what they call a "shuva de pedro"'; we call it 
 a hail storm, but I don't suppose the oldest citizen ever saw any- 
 thing like it. Of course, the people were very much excited, and 
 some of them thought the end of time had come. The next morn- 
 ing we could see the coffee was knocked off the trees and rolled 
 in piles and some of it washed into the creeks and branches. In 
 some places the yards were full of coffee, and I have no doubt 
 there were coffee farms that lost $15,000 or $20,000 worth of 
 coffee in twenty minutes. And the large trees lying across the 
 roads in the timber made them impassible for some time. We 
 could see signs of it in the coffee fields for twelve months. 
 
 I will tell you what a "bish" is. It is an insect that looks more 
 like a flea than anything I can think of; he gets under your toe 
 nails or finger nails and lays an egg, and makes him a sack and 
 hatches out some little "bishes." The next day if you don't take 
 the point of your knife and pick him out he will give you trouble. 
 To avoid all of this you must sweep out your house regularly and 
 bathe your feet in warm water every night. If you don't know 
 what, a "baranah" is, you would not be in Brazil long before you 
 would find out. A green fly will light on you and get under your 
 clothing and lay an egg on your arm, or some part of the body, 
 and in a few days you feel something that stings like an ant, and 
 they get to be troublesome, and I have seen Americans who had 
 been in the country twenty years and never knew how to get rid 
 of them. I had been in the country about four years when T 
 
—44— 
 
 found one on my arm that was giving me a great deal of trouble. 
 I rolled up my shirt sleeve and one of the natives looked at it and 
 said "sparumpoke,"' or "hold on." He went into the house and 
 took his pipe and ran a straw through the stem and came out with 
 a live coal of fire and some amber out of the pipe stem. He rubbed 
 a little amber on it and dried it with his coal of fire, and two 
 applications made him deathly sick. He took hold of my arm and 
 squeezed it out, and it was a little hairy worm with a large head. 
 They get on the cattle and dogs, but horses and mules the hide 
 is too tough for them. 
 
 Those people are very liberal in the way of credit, but as a rule 
 all classes have to pay their debts. In our country it is a hard 
 matter to collect a debt from a man who owns no property subject 
 to execution under the laws. It is different here. If a man be- 
 comes dissatisfied where he is at work and goes to some other 
 coffee farmer, the boss always asks him how much he owes at the 
 other place. He tells him and says all right. He writes a note 
 to the boss on the other place to make out his account and send 
 it to him and he will pay it, as be has employed one of his hands. 
 While there is no law to compel them to do this way, custom 
 makes it right, and I suppose it will always be so in this country. 
 Passports are not essential in entering Brazil, but it will always 
 cost you a little t<> leave the country. As for the investment of 
 capital, I don*t suppose that there is a country in the world, or 
 ever will he. that offers more inducements and a better prospect 
 for profit. There are no labor troubles, or labor organizations, 
 and I don't suppose ever will lie. 
 
 A> for what trade or profession has the best chance of suc- 
 cess in a country like that, one of our lawyers would have no show 
 without a thorough knowledge of the language and laws, and for 
 one of our doctors to get a certificate to practice medicine, that 
 is a difficult matter on account of the examinations he would have 
 to stand ; but if he is a dentist and understands his profession, 
 that will always be a good business here, for the prices they 
 charge for such work he can afford to get some one to talk for 
 him until he can understand what "Entra star pronta" means, 
 or, come in and take a seat in the chair, all ready, and it don't 
 take long to learn that. 
 
 Our missionaries see to have a good time; they live well and 
 
—45— 
 
 have nothing much to do. The natives are all Catholics and say 
 they are needed more in their own country than here, but I am not 
 very well posted about that business. 
 
 This is a healthy country. -If you pay strict attention to the 
 rules of health you will live to a good old age. I have known 
 people to come here with consumption and get well, but with a 
 case of rheumatism it is just the reverse. I understand an Eng- 
 lishman about 75 years old came here; he was a telegraph operator 
 and knew nothing else, and as English money runs all the rail- 
 roads, factories and banks, he thought, of course, he would have 
 no trouble in finding employment as soon as be landed. The idea 
 never occurred to him that he would have to telegraph in Portu- 
 guese, but they gave him a job keeping gate at some railroad sta- 
 tion. If be had been an American he would have been compelled 
 to go on some coffee farm to gather and hoe coffee or go back to 
 England, if be could get back. 
 
 We start back to the United States on the 26th day of May, 
 1898, and leave Rio on the steamer "(T-alileo" the 4th of June. 
 The war is going on with Spain. This is an English ship ; Amer- 
 ican ships are all laid up, put in at Bahia for coffee and other 
 freight. The next port reached is Purnambuke. We are drawing 
 about twenty-five feet of water, too much to go into the harbor. 
 We lay outside and the bargee come out. The ship had about 
 25,000 sacks of coffee aboard, besides other freight. They lay 
 planks down on this coffee and roll mahogany logs, guano, hides 
 and other freight down on them. We put in at the Island of St. 
 Lucia for coal, and land in New York the 23d of June, 1898, just 
 nineteen days from Eio. 
 
 I will now say, for the satisfaction of all who may want to know 
 something about the expense of such a trip as this, that we never 
 get too old to learn. When I went to Brazil J paid $435 in gold 
 Prom New York to Santos for myself, wife, and son about 9 years 
 obi, on an American ship, saloon, or first-class passage. Came 
 back on an English ship, second-class, and from Eio to New York 
 I paid $135 in gold, and I will say that 1 can sec but very little dif- 
 ference between second-class fare on an English ship and first-class 
 on an American ship, but to learn all this we must do like I did : 
 go and try it. 1 think you will find that the $300 saved will be 
 •of some benefit to you some time. The English people have more 
 
—46— 
 
 system and order on their ships than our people do. Second- 
 class fare on an American ship is like a pen. 
 
 I understand that our people are making some improvements 
 in this branch of business. I hope they are, for there is great 
 room for it. June or July is the proper time to make such a trip ; 
 then you are less exposed to storms on the ocean or epidemics on 
 the coast of South America. If I was going to make the trip 
 again, with my experience, instead of waiting in a hotel in New 
 York three weeks, as I did, for the regular mail steamer for Rio, 
 I would take the first good ship from New York to Southampton 
 or Liverpool, second-class, unless I had money to throw at birds, 
 and from there to Rio. As for your money, United States cur- 
 rency is good at a discount, or you can put your gold into a belt 
 and put around you, but either way you run the risk of being 
 robbed on the road, or lose your money by some accident. Then 
 you can get exchange in New York on Liverpool or London, which 
 is good in South America, but remember that unless you have the 
 original and duplicate, the first and the second, when you present 
 it to the banks at Rio or St. Paulo, they will ask you where the 
 second is. You tell them the second is in the hands of the bank 
 at New York. They will say, how do we know but that the second 
 has been presented and paid; we don't want it. Present the first 
 and second and we will pay it. Everything is done on the old 
 English banking system, and unless you have your exchange in 
 that kind of shape, it is worthless in South America. I have no 
 advice to offer any of our people to go to a foreign country, nor 
 do I ever expect to, for that is a serious matter, but if I was young 
 and had my life to live over and had the means to do something 
 on my own account and knowing the country and methods of 
 doing everything as I do, and was disposed to try my fortune in 
 a new country, I would not hesitate to go to Brazil. It is not 
 expected that this information will be interesting to old people 
 who have fought the battle of life and are contented with their 
 surroundings, and sensible of the fact that we get nothing out of 
 this world except what we eat, drink and wear. It is intended for 
 young people and future generations who are in a condition and 
 disposed to try their fortunes in a new country. I have given 
 them the facts, the advantages as well as the objections, and the 
 difficulties they would have to contend with, and it is for them to 
 determine whether or not they would better their condition in life 
 by such a move. 
 

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