to employ his immense force. His very numbers working to its disadvantage, hemmed in on every side, with Jackson's victorious corps in his rear and Lee in his front, strange as it may seem, Hooker's immense army of 100,000 men would have been forced to surrender, and the war would have ended with a clap of thunder. The whole North would have been laid open, and Lee's victorious army, augmented by thousands of enthusiastic volunteers. Washington and Baltimore would have been occupied and all of Maryland aroused.

This young and virile Confederacy, sprung all at once armed and equipped a very Cyclops from the brain of Minerva, would have taken its place high up among the family of nations.

That blast in the wilderness put an end to the almost assured result, and the hope of a great southern empire became only a dream. Was it Providence, or fate? Who can tell?

GENERAL NATHAN BEDFORD FORREST.

A Summary of Some of His Remarkable Achievements.

Bishop Gailor, of Tennessee, contributes to the Sewanee Review for January, 1901, a very readable sketch of the military career of General Nathan Bedford Forrest, the Confederate cavalry leader, of whom General Sherman once wrote: "After all, I think Forrest was the most remarkable man our civil war produced on either side.”

Forrest's first engagement, at Sacramento, Ky., illustrated the tactics that he followed with such marked success throughout the war-dismounting about one-third of his men in front as skirmishers, and then attacking with the others in two divisions on flank and

rear.

Passing over the surrender of Fort Donelson, to which Forrest refused to be a party, and which Bishop Gailor characterizes as "disgraceful," the next important action in which Forrest had a part was Shiloh, where he captured a battery, and on the retreat to Corinth he "saved the Confederate army from destruction by checking Sherman's advance."

Forrest's subsequent exploits are thus related by Bishop Gailor: "Within three weeks, however, he was again ready for action, and made a raid into Middle Tennessee that astounded his enemies, and

so began the marvellous career of audacity and success that ended only with the civil war. With 1,500 men he swooped upon the fortifications at Murfreesboro, destroyed the railway station and the forts, took 1,200 prisoners, including two brigadier-generals--Crittenden and Duffield-destroyed $700,000 worth of stores, captured sixty wagons, 500 mules and horses, one battery of artillery, and escaped in safety with the loss of but sixteen killed and twenty-five wounded. The country swarmed with Federal troops, and Forrest's escape reads like a chapter in fiction. General Buell wrote: Our guards are gathered up by Forrest as easily as he would herd cattle. Why don't you do something?"

་་

"After checking Buell's advance upon Bragg, who had marched into Kentucky, Forrest was again relieved of his command (November, 1862), and was ordered back to Tennessee to raise and equip another, if he could.

"By December 1st a new brigade of 2,000 men had gathered around him at Columbia; but they had virtually no arms, ammunition or other equipment, and the only source of supply was the enemy's garrisons. Forrest accordingly ventured to cross the Tennessee river, though it was patrolled by gunboats, and marched with his small brigade into West Tennessee in the face of more than 12,000 Federal troops. He eluded pursuit, captured Colonel Ingersoll and his command, near Jackson, captured the garrison at Forked Deer creek, then captured Trenton and its garrison, and again Union City with its garrison, and destroyed immense quantities of stores. Being surrounded finally by three brigades, he attacked one after the other, and made his escape in safety, taking with him 500 recruits, full supplies of arms, ammunition, horses, and clothes for his men, together with five pieces of artillery, eleven cannon, thirty-eight wagons and teams, and 1,500 prisoners."

In his account of Forrest's raid into West Tennessee, in 1863, Bishop Gailor quotes the words of "a northern correspondent,” who wrote:

"In the face of 10,000 Federal troops, Forrest, with less than 4,000, has marched right through the Sixteenth Army Corps, nine miles from Memphis, carried off 100 wagons, 200 cattle, 3,000 conscripts, destroyed several railroads and many towns."

In his successful attack on General William S. Smith, Forrest stated that he had 2,500 men engaged against 7,000.

Summarizing General Forrest's personal characteristics, Bishop Gailor says:

"He was a man of immense physical strength and size, and as resolute and audacious in personal encounters as in open battle. His temper was terrific when aroused, and his language was often violent and profane, but never vulgar or obscene. He detested uncleanness, as he despised wanton cruelty and oppression. In the midst of the battle, when his own life was in peril, he was known to rescue a woman and a child from danger and carry them to a place of safety. While he thrashed a scout with hickory switches for giving him second-hand information, he degraded one of his best officers for trifling with the affections of a woman. He was unlearned, but not illiterate. A pen, he said once, reminded him of a snake; and his spelling was consistently wrong, but his natural eloquence could move his troops to enthusiasm. He did not know the first principles of the drill, being astonished at the effect of a trumpet-call upon disciplined soldiers, and yet, in his general plan of battle he instinctively adopted mature tactics of Napoleon. He exercised an authority as a general that was absolutely intolerant of the slightest variation or disobedience, and yet he was the genial companion of his subordinates, and was foremost in exposing himself in every battle. He had twenty-nine horses killed under him, and with his own hand slew thirty men.'

[From the Charlotte (N. C.) Observer, March 11, 1901.]

STORMING THE STONE FENCE AT GETTYSBURG.

A Morganton Confederate Veteran Tells of the Charge.

I, Thomas Espy Causby, born in Burke county, N. C., June 24, 1831, make this statement of my recollections of the great battle of Gettysburg. Many of the little details I have forgotten, but of the facts herein stated I am absolutely positive. I enlisted as a private in Company D, Sixth North Carolina regiment, in the early part of the year 1861, and fought in the ranks through the war until I was

wounded in the battles around Petersburg, and was in a hospital at Richmond at the time of the surrender. I was in the first battle at Manassas, was at Fredericksburg, Sharpsburg, the Seven Days' battles below Richmond, Gettysburg, and the fights around Petersburg.

Before the battle of Gettysburg our brigade, commanded by Colonel Isaac Avery, of Burke county, was camped at Little York, Pa., where we remained two nights and a day. We were ordered to march on Gettysburg, and on the first day we met the enemy in the outskirts of Gettysburg in a big field, and captured a great many of them. Our brigade, led by Colonel Avery, marched through the streets of Gettysburg, where we captured a few more prisoners. A few Yankees were killed in the streets of the town, and from one of these I took a new canteen, of which I had need. After we marched through the town, we advanced a few hundred yards and struck camp in a deep ravine, where we remained until late in the afternoon of the second day's battle.

About 5 or 6 o'clock in the evening we were ordered to advance and charge the breastworks on the big hill in front of us, where the enemy was entrenched. There was an awful roar of big guns and musketry, and we charged up the steep hill between a quarter and a half mile. The enemy's batteries kept up a terrific fire, but most of the shells and grape passed over our heads. Colonel Avery fell about half way between the ravine where we had camped and the stone fence on the hill, used as a breastwork by the enemy, and Colonel S. McD. Tate, the next in rank, took command of the brigade. Our brigade charged in good order until we were within a short distance of the stone fence, which did not extend all the way across the face of the hill. Here the brigade spread out across the face of the hill, part of the men making for the ends of the fence, as I recollect.

About seventy-five of our brigade, led by Colonel Tate and Captain Neill Ray, charged directly on the stone fence, which we crossed and then bayonetted the Yankee gunners, and drove them back after a hard fight. About twenty men attached to the Louisiana brigade crossed the fence about the same time we did. We turned some of the guns on the enemy and tried to fire them, but most of them had been spiked by the Yankees. By this time it was getting dark, and the enemy we had driven back had been heavily re-enforced, and after remaining beyond the fence some fifteen or

twenty minutes we withdrew and rejoined our brigade, and that night we started on the return march to Virginia.

Although I was in so many of the big battles of the war, I was never wounded until during the fighting around Petersburg, shortly before the surrender, and though now nearly seventy years of age, am still possessed of considerable strength and health, though my brave colonel and captain and, as far as I know, all of the men who crossed the old stone fence with me on the memorable charge have passed away. THOMAS E. CAUSBY.

[From the New York Independent, September, 1901.]

CONFEDERATE STATES STATE DEPARTMENT.

A Description of It by Colonel L. Q. Washington.

DEEPLY INTERESTING PAPER.

Personal Reminiscences of Much Value-Recollections of President Davis, Bob Toombs, R. M. T. Hunter, and Judah P. Benjamin.

The public has had a deluge of histories in respect to the Civil War and the Southern Confederacy. The history of the antecedent period covering the anti-slavery agitation has also been written up, for the most part with bias and partisanship. The military events of the four-years' struggle have also been exhibited in official reports, documents, memoirs, and narratives of every kind and description. The material for this history exists in abundance; but, though passion is subsiding it would still be difficult to prepare a work satisfactory to both sides of this great controversy.

Very little comparatively has been written in respect to the work of the Confederate State Department. Some ambitious attempts have been recently made to supply this omission by persons whose means of obtaining accurate information were quite limited. Misrepresentations of Confederate diplomacy have come from different sources. They were made during the war in some anti-administration newspapers published in the South. Attacks were made which