by some disposed to be "showy," but when "the tug of war came, and he led one against forty and held the line for three hours, Captain Peeples was on that front line, and his cool courage and untiring ceaseless energy accomplished wonderful results.

ents.

Captain Peeples survived the war, and lived for many years an honored and highly esteemed citizen of Barnwell county, holding offices of responsibility and trust to the satisfaction of his constituHis death was universally regretted. It is a privilege, which I highly appreciate, that has enabled me, even at this late period, to write a line in memory of so gallant and loyal a Carolinian.` WM. A. COURTENAY.

Innisfallen, August, 1898.

GENERAL J. E. B. STUART.

CAPTAIN R. E. FRAYSER'S TRIBUTE TO HIS MEMORY.

Address Prepared to be Delivered at the Dedication of the Stuart Monument at Yellow Tavern-Authentic Biography of the Great Cavalry Leader.

On the 18th day of June, 1888, the monument erected to the memory of the late General J. É. B. Stuart was dedicated at Yellow Tavern, the spot where he fell. Among those who were to have delivered addresses on that occasion was Captain R. E. Frayser, of Stuart's staff, a highly esteemed citizen of Richmond; but owing to the lengthened proceedings and the lateness of the hour, he was prevented from speaking. His address, however, was really an authentic sketch of the career of the gallant cavalry leader, and because of its interest and value it is preserved here.

Mr. President, my Comrades and Countrymen:

We are here to-day to honor the boy of Laurel Hill and the hero of more than a hundred battles, by dedicating to his memory an unostentatious granite shaft, to mark the spot upon which he fell, mortally wounded, a little more than twenty-four years ago, while defending the city of Richmond.

The name of James Ewell Brown Stuart has already been inscribed indelibly upon the pages of history, and his illustrious deeds are

known to all civilized nations. His career was brief, but brilliant as the meteor that flashes athwart the heavens and leaves in its track refulgent light. Our hero was born at Laurel Hill, Patrick county, Virginia, on the 6th day of February, 1833, and fell on this field the 11th day of May, 1864. In this short period of thirty-one years, four months and twelve days, he won a glorious and imperishable name, and one that posterity will delight to cherish and honor for his noble attributes and his transcendent military achievements. It would be supererogation in me to follow this sublime man from his birth-place, through the school-room at Wytheville, Emory and Henry, at West Point, and the trackless forest in pursuit of the redman for the protection of the early settlers on the frontiers in the great Western wilds, or the conspicuous part he took in all the campaigns in our late civil war, until he fell on this field, and now known to every intelligent school-boy.

In the spring of 1855 he was transferred to the 1st Regiment United States Cavalry with the rank of second lieutenant. In December of the same year he was promoted to be first lieutenant in his regiment. With this rank and in this regiment, on the 29th day of July, 1857, upon the north fork of Solomon's river, he was engaged in a very severe battle with 300 Cheyenne warriors, in which he was shot in the breast, and the ball was never extracted. There was the same valor exhibited in this engagement that he evinced in all subsequent ones. He acted as volunteer aid to Lieutenant-Colonel Robert E. Lee in the suppression of the John Brown insurrection at Harper's Ferry and in a parley with old "Ossawatomie," at the engine house where he and his followers had taken shelter, Stuart says: "I approached the door in the presence of perhaps 2,000 spectators, and told Mr. Smith that I had a communication for him from Colonel Lee. He opened the door about four inches, and placed his body against the crack, with a carbine in his hand. Hence his remark after his capture that he could have wiped me out like a mosquito. When Smith first came to the door I recognized old Ossawatomie Brown, who had given us so much trouble in Kansas. No one present but myself could have performed that service."

In March, 1861, Lieutenant Stuart obtained a two month's furlough, in order that he might be able to direct his own course in the event of his State seceding and with the view of returning to Virginia or removing with his family to Fort Lyon as soon as there was some decided action of his State. He first learned of the ordinance

of secession at Fort Riley, but his leave of absence had not at that time expired. But he at once removed with his family to St. Louis, and started down the river on a steamboat for Memphis. At Cairo he forwarded his resignation to the War Department. Immediately thereafter he was informed that he had been promoted to a captaincy in his regiment. On the 7th day of May he reached Wytheville, Va., and on that day his resignation was accepted by the War Department.

His first commission in the Lost Cause was that of lieutenant-colonel of infantry, dated May the 10th, 1861, with orders to report to Colonel Thomas J. Jackson, then at Harper's Ferry. He rose rapidly in his new field of operations, for he possessed all the qualities that usually insure success in life, intelligence, sobriety, integrity, energy, vigilance, firmness, and unerring judgment. Stuart's mental faculties were excellent, even in the very heat of battle, and to this is greatly due his great victories in the field. I have seen him in some hot and perilous places, but I never saw him unduly excited. Always calm in the face of danger with a presence of mind that could not be surpassed, thus verifying the couplet:

"Errors not to be recalled do find

Their best redress from presence of mind.”

He received a thorough military education at West Point, graduating thirteen in a class of forty-six members. He hesitated when about to leave his alma mater, whether he would pursue the law or arms as a profession. He finally chose the latter, and received at commission as brevet second-lieutenant in the regiment of mounted riflemen, then serving in Texas, dated July 1st, 1854, and he first rendered active service in an expedition against the Apache Indians in a portion of the country that was little known at the time. In this march the Muscalero Apaches were forced to flee across the Rio Grande into Mexico. It would consume too much time for me to give an account of the skirmishes, scouts and hardships of this expedition. That you may know how well this great leader we are honoring to-day acquitted himself, we will mention here what General J. S. Simonson, his commanding officer at the time, says about him: "Lieutenant Stuart was brave and gallant, always prompt in the execution of orders, and reckless of danger and exposure. I considered him at that time one of the most promising young officers in the United States Army." This is indeed, a high compliment when taken in connection with the large number of young officers serving

at that time in the army. I believe the first fight in which Stuart was engaged was with a band of Comanche Indians while crossing Peacus river.

Yes, this presence of mind was of incalculable value to him. It enabled him to overcome obstacles and to meet all emergencies, by which at times he extricated himself and command from the powerful grasp of the enemy. This I witnessed in June, 1862, in his memorable raid around McClellan's army, which was applauded by the civilized world at the time as a brilliant achievement, and pronounced by Napoleon III, then on the throne of France, as a grand piece of strategy, and one that could not be excelled by any officer. Under orders of his chief he was required to make a reconnoisance on the right of the Federal army while it lay on the Chickahominy menacing Richmond. Stuart, by his boldness and hard fighting, had penetrated to the rear of the Federals, and had reached a point that was alarmingly perilous. He had cut through the enemy's lines and destroyed transports, commissary, and quartermaster trains, by which means he had stirred up the whole Federal army, as a mischievous boy does sometimes a colony of hornets, and there was no way he could possibly retrace his steps, the road over which he had come was filled with the enemy; for the Federals fully expected he would endeavor to return by it to the Confederate lines, and they had taken steps to crush him.

Here he was being hotly pursued, and could in no way receive any succor from the Confederates, for he was wholly cut off from them by the Federals on the Chickahominy. There was but one remedy in this trying dilemma, and that was to go forward and pass around McClellan's whole army. But how was this to be done when a river confronted him which was swollen by heavy rains and was no longer fordable, and the danger was thickening every moment by an enraged and powerful foe gathering around him and his command and threatening them with annihilation and capture. But Stuart was equal to the emergency. I saw him as he approached the river and made observations up and down the stream, but he did not show any signs of fear or anxiety as he sat on his horse stroking his luxuriant beard as he pondered over the situation. He had, in the meantime, dispatched a courier to General Lee apprising him of his perilous position. After doing this, he learned that at a point below the ford there were the remains of an old bridge, to which he hastened with his command. Upon his arrival there he discovered scarcely a skeleton of a bridge, for the Confederates in their retreat up

the Peninsular had destroyed it. But it occurred to Stuart that he would, under such trying circumstances, make an effort to rebuild it. He placed a strong picket in his rear, and dismounted a portion of his command, and under his eye commenced earnest and unremitting work. Timbers were taken from an old warehouse in the neighboring field and carried hurriedly to the spot where nothing remained but the debris of the bridge. There were men to receive and to put them together as they were delivered upon the banks of the river. The rapidity with which those timbers were united by unskilled hands was a surprise even to they who performed the work. The bridge possessed little or no architectural beauty after being completed, but it possessed great strength, which was more desirable than an attractive appearance, and the amateur bridge builders received the hearty thanks of the whole command. While this work was going on Stuart had in his rear a threatening and formidable force gathering to strike him, and this was the only means of escape.

He lost no time after crossing the same for he was still in the enemy's country and could only check his pursuers for a time by the destruction of the bridge, which he burnt, immediately after crossing with his command. He was now in Charles City county, but still separated from the Confederate army, and there was but one road by which he could escape and that is known as the James river road which was occupied at that time by General Hooker with a large Federal force. Stuart passed rapidly through treacherous bogs and estuaries on the north side of the Chickahominy until he reached a point known as Green Oak, here he left the Chickahominy and marched with great rapidity to Brukland on James river, halting an hour or more to snatch some repose a: Judge Isaac H. Christian's in this neighborhood. He resumed his march for the Confederate lines, but without his command, for this was left here with orders to move at a later hour. Taking a courier and myself as guide he started at night for the headquarters of General Lee, at that time at Dobb's farm, near Richmond, a distance of thirty miles. Pause for a moment and think of a general officer separating himself from his whole command and riding the distance already mentioned, with only two men, a whole night through a country occupied at the time by hostile forces actually engaged in scouting and picketing all the roads, placing his life in great peril every moment of the time. Stuart was a splendid rider, going at a gallop nearly the whole way, and frequently in the advance of both courier and guide. There was one point in this all-night ride that was thrillingly perilous, and that was