A BATTLE ROMANCE.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume X, Issue 7, 18 February 1893, Page 157

A BATTLE ROMANCE.

* 1 fell inJove with the youug lady I afterwards married while the battle of the Wilderness was raging,’ said Major Dan Thompson, a member of the Reminiscence Club, that was in session at the Southern. ‘During the first day's fighting the Confederates charged us across an old ditch and were driven back with terrible slaughter. We advanced and took up a position in the ditch and for a few moments the roar of battle died away, with the exception of a Confederate battery far to our left, which kept snailing viciously. Right in front of me lay a young Confederate who had been shot through the hips. He was a handsome boy, not more than seventeen, and was evidently suffering terrible agony. He was trying bravely to be a man, but the tears would rise to his eyes and in a few moments he was sobbing bitterly. I asked him what I could do for him, and he took from his pocket a portrait of his sister and asked me to give it to her when I reached Richmond. He evidently believed that because his regiment had been driven back the cause was hopelessly lost, and that nothing remained for the Federal troops to do but march into Richmond with colours flying. I had the youngster carried to the rear and cared tor, and put the picture of his sister in my pocket, where it remained to the end of the war. Her brother recovered and was finally exchanged. A few days after the capitulation of Richmond I called on the young lady to deliver her picture according to promise, and—well, it was another case of “ Held by the Enemy.’’ The brother and I are in business together in Baltimore.’