CONFEDERATE BIOGRAPHY:  Strange Incident

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Submitted by Mary Love Berryman - marylove@tyler.net
7 June 2002 
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TEXANS WHO WORE THE GRAY by Sid S. Johnson, pages 304-305 

STRANGE INCIDENT.

H. McBride Pridgen, a member of Whitfield's Legion at the battle of 
Elk Horn Tavern, had lost his blankets. At the battle of Farmington, 
Tenn., Col. Sparks in his book relates the following:

Whitfield's battalion had been dismounted, in order that it could 
participate in the battle as infantry, which it did, and, as the 
Third regiment was marching to the battle field on the morning of 
the 6th, "Colonel" Pridgen, who, foot-sore and weary, had sat down 
by the roadside, enveloped in a huge, gray, double blanket, in one 
corner of which was worked, in scarlet worsted, "H. McBride Pridgen." 
Being acquainted with nearly every man in Company A, he desired some 
one to allow him to ride behind him to the battlefield. Robert R. 
Wright invited the fatigued man to mount behind him, which he did, 
and rejoined his command on the battlefield.  In the heat of the 
action, his huge blankets became too cumbersome, and he laid them on 
the ground, but the line being forced back by the enemy, the 
"Colonel's" blank­ets were not recovered.  He gave them up for lost, 
and, at the dreary bivouac fire, often afterwards spoke in touching 
terms of his friendly blankets.  Time wore on, and Van Dorn's command 
was transferred to Mississippi, and had the honor of whipping the 
corps d'armee of "Head.Quarters-in­the-Saddle" Pope, at the battle of 
Farmington, capturing his camp and all its contents.  After the 
battle, the boys engag­ed, to a moderate extent, in pillaging his 
deserted stores. Imagine my surprise, when the redoubtable "Colonel" 
Prid­gen rushed up, holding a large, double, gray blanket in his hands, 
in the corner of which still shone the legend in crim­son letters: 
"H. McBride Pridgen!"  "By the Gods!" he ex­claimed, "I have found the 
blankets I lost at Elk Horn, Ar­kansas." This was a strange coincidence, 
but the circum­stance is true.