It thus happened (one of the rarest occurrences of the war) that the whole of the 10th Louisiana engaged in a bayonet struggle along almost the entire line, with a force fifteen times greater than their own number. The advanced line of the Federals having been driven back the 10th finds itself among the cannoneers. While Dean, a brave Irishman, was receiving his death wound at the side of the leader of the 10th by a bayonet through the neck, the latter succeeded in knocking up the muskets in his immediate front and in cutting a path as far as the second line of the enemy's artillery. His death seemed inevitable. Cries of "kill him," "bayonet him,' sounded on all sides. His command, which it may be said in passing, had been ordered forward by a military error, and never for a moment had a ghost of a chance of success, were of course nearly all killed or captured by the formidable line in their immediate front. Those of the 10th who succeeded in stumbling back over the bodies of their fallen comrades owed their escape to the darkness.

Colonel Waggaman was captured and with some sixteen others, including Captain I. L. Lyons, was taken to Fort Warren, near Boston, where they remained until exchanged. They were everywhere treated with courtesy, and one pleasant incident, at least, mingled softening remembrances with those of his imprisonment. Just before his capture he had thrown away his sword to prevent surrendering it. This was a weapon valuable both for the quality of its steel, its make and the fact that it had been in use by the family for over 150 years. At the exchange this sword was returned to him by Assistant-Adjutant-General Thomas, who had been specially commissioned to do so.

After the exchange Colonel Waggaman was sent back to Louisiana as a recruiting officer, but was shortly afterwards recalled to Virginia by special order of General Lee. He took Stafford's command of the 2d Louisiana Brigade. He did brilliant fighting in the second valley campaign. He was wounded in the forearm at Winchester, but even while suffering from his inflamed wound continued in command. At Petersburg he led the 2d Brigade in another desperate charge, and again saw perilous action when the brigades were covering the retreat.

There it was Colonel was left of the 16,000 When they had been

Then Appomattox and surrender came. Waggaman's sad honor to surrender all that men who composed the Louisiana brigades. drawn up in ranks for the ceremony Colonel Waggaman begged of them the privilege of becoming the depository of a piece of the bri

gade's battle-flag. This was willingly granted. The flag had to be surrendered, but a piece could be taken from it. With that sword which had saved his life at Malvern Hill he cut a section, including the lateral side and two stars. This he has sacredly preserved, with

Only one
That one
He

the same old saddle-bag and papers in which it was placed, to be transmitted as his most valuable heirloom to his children. person has ever induced him to part with a portion of it. was the daughter of his old commander-Miss Mildred Lee. gave her, some twelve years ago, a small piece, including one of the stars, and in return received a splendid portrait of her father.

At Appomattox every respect was shown the Louisiana soldiers. At the surrender they marched with heads as erect as ever. When they impinged on the line of the conquering enemy the victors shouldered arms with grave faces, on which was neither smile nor cynicism, nor suggestion of the defeat of their adversaries.

Colonel Waggaman returned to New Orleans with the remnant of the Louisiana troops. His fortune was shattered, but he set manfully to work to repair it. He was elected at one time to the office of civil sheriff of this parish, and always took an active share in politics as a becoming citizen.

His wife and four sons and two daughters survive the deceased. The sons are William, Albert, Charles and Frank, the first two mentioned being married, and the daughters are Mrs. Thomas E. Waggaman, of Washington, and Mrs. Mamie Birne, of Wilmington, Delaware.

For the past year or so of his life, the Colonel was engaged in experimenting upon a small farm he possessed near Lake Charles, in the hope that he might make it profitable, and it was during this period that he exposed himself injudiciously to the weather, and to too great hardships for a man of his age. The experiment was not successful, the railroad being too far away from his farm to enable him to operate it to advantage.

One of the touching incidents of his late years happened at the time of the Veteran Reunion in Houston. One of the men who had been in his command at Malvern Hill proposed to go to this reunion and one of the great plans he had in connection with it, was to wear the sword his chief had thrown away at Malvern Hill, rather than have it captured. The Colonel accomodated him, but he said: "Only once in its history since I have had it, has it parted company from me. Take it, and be sure that it gets back to me safe. I could hardly refuse it to one who had followed it so gallantly as you. But,"

added the Colonel, with emphasis, "if it doesn't come back to me safe, be careful that you do not come back." His old soldier comrade lived in a distant parish, and so impressed was he with the earnestness of his former commander's words, that he was afraid to trust it to the express company or any messenger, and it was only when one of the Colonel's sons by accident happened to be in his portion of the State, that he hunted him up and asked if he was quite sure that he could bring the sword safely back to the Colonel, if he were entrusted with it.

[From the Richmond (Va.) Enquirer, May 10, 1871.]

HON. JAMES MURRAY MASON,

Of "Mason & Slidell Fame.

A Tribute to this Exalted Patriot by Hon. Henry A. Wise.

The Hon. James Murray Mason is no more. His death has already been announced, but we deem it a pleasure, as well as a duty, to take more than a cursory notice of the loss of such a man to the once honored State, which he and his ancestors served so long and so eminently, at a time when her glory was the chief pride of her

sons.

Descended from the Masons of Gunston, in Virginia, and from the Murrays of Maryland, he was born November 3, 1798, in the county of Fairfax, and after early boyhood was reared and educated chiefly in the city of Philadelphia, with every opportunity for attaining accomplishments of a high order. He was a resident in a French family of superior refinement, and was a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, A. D. 1818. Thus trained to the age of his majority he could not be other than a gentleman, in the highest sense of that much abused term.

The son of General John Mason, Sr., of "Claremont,' the grandson of George Mason, of "Gunston," the only rival of George Washington, and the author of the first Bill of Rights, properly conceived and expressed, ever penned for mankind, and sprung from a mother more like a "mother of the Gracchi," than almost any woman of her day, James M. Mason could not but feel the

pride of birth and a sense that he had an escutcheon never to be stained, always to be kept in honor. But he had no other pride of family than that which required of him every attainment and every virtue to maintain his position in society and his relations to the State. He was far above the boasting of his blood.

Philadelphia, at that day, was not only the cleanest city in the world, with the best founded and governed municipal institutions on this continent, under strict Quaker regime, but had a society of the world, the most cultivated in all its grades. Mr. Mason had free access to that society, sought it, and availed himself of all its advantages. Among other families of high "grace and decorum," he was happily intimate in that of the eminent Benjamin Chew, of Germantown, whose house was battered by the balls of the Revolution; and early after graduating in the profession of the law he wedded one of the proudest daughters of that house. It was not a case of noblesse oblige," but a beautiful love-match between "lady and knight," both accomplished, peerless and true. That lady survives the honored lord, who cherished her devotedly a long life-time through; and next to the solace which God gives to one bereaved like her, she has the comfort of the many pledges of their true love in the children and grandchildren of their marriage.

We are informed that Mr. Mason studied law with Mr. Benjamin Watkins Leigh, of the Richmond bar. He evidently studied law, especially the English common law and its history, more with the view to its application to the science of government than to its practice in the forum. In politics he was hereditarily a Democratic Republican, opposed to all implied powers, for strict construction and strong limitations of constitutional powers of government, and extremely jealous of the separate, independent and sovereign rights of the States, and especially maintained the right of self-government in the States in respect to their own domestic and internal relations. His political faith was of the order of the stock of men from which he sprung-it was after the model of his grandfather, and he aspired to political preferment from the first of his career.

He settled in the town of Winchester, in the rich county of Frederick, of the valley of the Shenandoah, and the first time we had personal knowledge of him was in 1826, when he was in the twentyninth year of his age. On the 4th of July of that year he delivered the oration of the day in that town to a large concourse of citizens, and we were struck with the singularly same ring of metal which sounds in the old George Mason Bill of Rights. He was not, how

ever, neglectful of his profession, was diligent in its practice, and the bench and bar of Winchester and surrounding circuits then, even more than now, were distinguished for eminent lawyers, such as Henry St. George Tucker, Alfred H. Powell and John R. Cooke, and a younger tier of professional devotees, such as the two Marshalls, the Conrads and Moses Hunter, the best wit of them all. Mr. Mason took a high rank among them at the bar, but always looked to politics for his field of distinction; yet he was no demagogue, and spurned the ad captandum of the vulgar electioneerer. His forte was good taste; and he had the keenest relish for the aesthetical. The word "proper" with him embraced not only what was befitting, in good phase and seeming, but what was just, manly and right in itself. His education partook of the French school, and it modified his English temperament, American habits and Virginian abandon into a peculiar form. It made him self-possessed in his manner, and no scion of chivalry was ever more manly; and yet there was inexplicably mixed in him qualities confused in the composition, which made him seem to strangers what he was not-somewhat haughty in his carriage. There was a geniality mixed with a hauteur uncongenial; a hearty laugh contrasted with the sternest frown; a brusqueness with a reticent and commanding dignity; a John Bull bluffness with a French-like air of finished politeness; a Virginian old plantation way with marked attention to niceties; a jealous regard for conventional forms, and yet he would violate them imperiously. His integrity was sterling-exact to truth; his firmness was rock-like; his sense of honor was of the highest tone, and his every word and action was guided by a discretion always sound and always on guard. In the family, both of his father and his own home at Winchester, he was the model of husband, father, son and brother; among his friends and associates he was supreme in their confidence, and he was among the few men known ever to have magnified by the nearer approach to him; he was greater near to him than he appeared to be at a distance, because he preferred the intrinsic and real to any looming of the mirage of greatness, and he was far higher in his moral than in his mental faculties and powers. A man thus stamped with the seal of nobleness could not fail to attract the homage of those around him, or to be afforded the opportunities for the aspirations he indulged. Honest, he was trusted; discreet, he was relied on to "do justice and judgment;" and brave, all felt assured that he could make the "sacrifice" when called on. He did nobly make it at the last extremity, without a murmur and without soiling his