【英文读物】The Comanches.docx
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1、【英文读物】The ComanchesPREFACE.To the Members of the Thirty-Fifth Virginia Cavalry:The following pages have been prepared under many and great difficulties, and while they exhibit the history of the command we were so proud of in the dark days of the war for States Rights and the old Constitution, they
2、are very far from presenting a full history of our Battalion.Almost all the papers relating to the operations of the “Comanches,” whether belonging to the field and staff or to company officers, were lost at the surrender of the army, in consequence of which I have been compelled to draw nearly all
3、that is recorded from my own memory, assisted materially by Col. White, in the account of the “battle of Brandy Station,” and of the raids in Fairfax and Loudoun in 1863.To Mr. John O. Crown I am under obligations for the use of his MSS., giving an account of the operations in the autumn of 1862, an
4、d of the last winter of the war, and to Lieuts. J. R. Crown and E. J. Chiswell for much that is interesting in the history of Company B; to the former especially, for a report of his fight with Coles battalion in Maryland, and of his capture by the same command in 1863.The lists of killed and wounde
5、d for Company B were prepared by Lieut. Chiswell; for Company C, by Capt. Dowdell; for Company E, Lieut. Strickler, and for Company A, by myself.From Company F, I regret exceedingly that I have not been able to obtain any information whatever.As for the manner of the work, while I am free to confess
6、 that the story is by no means well told, yet, the men of the Battalion who, by education and talent, were well qualified for the task of preparing it, would not, and it has thus fallen to my lot to write this history; and, such as it is, I submit it to your judgment for approval or not, as you may
7、decide; but among its faults I claim that violations of the historians religiontruthwill not be 6laid to its charge; and the thoughts, feelings, and impressions, unbiassed by the warpings of after events, have been presented as far as possible.It is a story altogether of the past, and, as soldiers o
8、f the “Lost Cause,” we have nothing to do with the efforts of politicians, North or South, to galvanize the Confederacy into spasmodic action, and then cryTheres life in the old land yet.There is no attempt either to conceal or parade the grief we, as Confederate soldiers, felt at the furling of the
9、 “conquered banner.”“For though conquered, we adore it,Love the cold, dead hands that bore it.”But while we do love so dearly the battle-flag of “Dixie,” we regard it only as the emblem of the “storm-cradled nation that fell,” and as the winding-sheet of its dead and buried glory, over whose gloomy
10、tomb the brave, true-hearted men of the southland have raised a monument of noble deeds, which will defy malice, oppression, and time.We know that the Southern Confederacy is dead, and all its mourning lovers ask is permission to bury their dead reverently.“Hushed is the roll of the Rebel drum,The s
11、abres are sheathed, and the cannon are dumb,And fate with pitiless hand has furled,The flag that once challenged the gaze of the world.”But the fame of its soldiers deserves to live on the pages of history, and, if I have aided in rescuing from oblivion the story of the gallant deeds performed by th
12、e men that followed Col. Elijah V. White through the bloody years of that desolating war, I am satisfied.F. M. MYERS.Loudoun County. Va., Nov. 27, 1870.CHAPTER I.In commencing the story of the brave deeds performed during the dark days of the great civil war in America by the gallant band known as W
13、hites Battalion, it will be proper to give a short sketch of the man who, as chief of the “Comanches,” gave to the Thirty-fifth Battalion, Virginia Cavalry, its existence, and led it through so many campaigns, battles and raids, to occupy a place in the history of the war second to no command of its
14、 numbers, and distinguished under the special notice of such men as “Stonewall” Jackson, Richard S. Ewell, J. E. B. Stuart, William E. Jones, Thomas L. Rosser and the gallant Butler of South Carolina; besides receiving the highest encomiums from the greatest cavalry commander since the days when Mur
15、at led the squadrons of NapoleonGeneral Wade Hamptonand of Robert E. Lee, before whose fame the most splendid garlands of glory that wreathe the brows of the noblest men of earth in all time, pale as does the silver moon-beam before the radiant rays of the noon-day sun.8Elijah V. White was born near
16、 Poolsville, Montgomery County, Maryland, on the 29th of August, 1832, and continued at his fathers home until he was sixteen years of age, when he was sent to Lima Seminary, Livingston Co., N. Y., to be educated. Here he remained for two years, at the expiration of which he attended Granville Colle
17、ge, in Licking Co., Ohio, for two more years, when he returned to his home in Maryland.During the war in Kansas, in 1855 or 56, he went to that territory, and joining a company from Missouri, took an active part in the troubles that then threatened to overthrow the pillars of the old Constitution in
18、 the terrible maelstrom of abolitionism that afterwards swept away their foundations.After the Kansas war closed, young White came home, and shortly afterwards bought a farm on the south bank of the Potomac, in Loudoun county, Virginia, where he took up his residence in 1857, and on the 9th of Decem
19、ber of the same year married Miss Sarah Elizabeth Gott.At the first signal of war, given by John Brown at Harpers Ferry, in October, 1859, White was a Corporal in the Loudoun Cavalry, a company then commanded by Capt. Dan. T. Shreve, with which he took part in the scenes of excitement that followed
20、this mad attempt of Northern fanaticism to sweep the twin scourges of fire and blood over the South. At the breaking out of the war 9in 1861, White was still a member of this company; but owing to a change of its officers, which, to a great extent, damaged its efficiency, he left it and attached him
21、self to the company of Capt. Frank Mason, in Ashbys Legion, with which he served until the autumn of that year, being engaged principally in scouting, much of which he did under the orders of Col. Eppa Hunton, who, during the summer, commanded in Loudoun county. On one of his scouts for Col. Hunton,
22、 in Maryland, he captured the first Yankee prisoner of the war in the person of one Costine, of Gen. McCalls staff. When Gen. Evans took command in Leesburg, “Lige White,” as he was familiarly known, reported to him, and the night before the fight at Bolivar, the General asked “Lige” if he didnt wan
23、t some fun, at the same time informing him that Ashby intended to attack Geary on the following morning; whereupon “Lige” started at 9 oclock, reaching Ashbys camp just as that commander was marching out to make his demonstration on Harpers Ferry. In this brilliant affair he bore his full share, and
24、 when it was over returned on a furlough, to Loudoun, to make necessary arrangements for leaving his family in as comfortable circumstances as possible, while he followed the fortunes of the battle flag of Dixie. Early on the morning of the 21st of October, while driving to Leesburg from Mr. Henry B
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