CONFEDERATE BIOGRAPHY: FEDERAL TRIBUTE TO THE CONFEDERATES - Smith County, 
TX

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Submitted by Peggy Brannon - peggybrannon@hotmail.com
08 October 2001
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TEXANS WHO WORE THE GRAY by Sid S. Johnson

The incident which I relate happened in middle South Carolina during the 
early eighties. A former captain in the Confederate army asked his son, also 
a Confederate, a sergeant in the company of his father, to go to mill. The 
mill was on the stream on which the first cotton factory built south of 
Mason and Dixon's line, was established and which was done during the war of 
1812; the machinery for which had been hauled from Philadelphia in wagons in 
order to avoid the danger of capture from British vessels.
The miller was a native of England. He had served in the English army in the 
Crimea in 1857. His regiment was afterwards sent to Canada, and he drifted 
from there into the United States and enlisted in the Federal army during 
the war between the States.

Soon after arrival at the mill, while the miller was busy, the Confederate 
was standing at the door, when a negro gave a yell in the creek swamp near 
by. Instantly the miller hurried to the door, saying: "Did you hear that?" 
The reply was affirmative. "That was the Rebel yell," continued the miller, 
"and I don't like to hear it even now. You know I was in the Federal army; 
and no matter how many men we had nor how securely we were intrenched, when 
we heard that 'Rebel yell,' we were whipped before you got to us because we 
knew you were going to do whatever you undertook."

Inclined to draw the man out on the subject of war, I said: "Suppose that 
during the seige at Petersburg and Richmond, General Grant and General Lee 
could have exchanged numbers and resources--I mean suppose Gen. Lee could 
have had one hundred thousand well fed and clothed Confederate soldiers and 
General Grant had had only about thirty thousand starving Federals with no 
shoes and little clothing--how long do you suppose it would have taken Gen. 
Lee to go to Washington?"

In an excited way the Federal replied: "Good God, man, all he would have had 
to do would be to get over the works and go there." "Well, then," I replied, 
'why did not Gen. Grant go to Richmond?" "Because he could not do it," 
replied the Federal. "He tried it hard enough. There never were and there 
never will be such soldiers as were those of the Confederate army."
This incident is, in the opinion of the writer, one of the most beautiful 
tributes ever paid to the valor and long suffering of an army which wrote a 
nation's history with their bayonets. C. D.  EVANS.