the Commander of a Texas Brigade, whose name has slipped my memory, having never met him before; he was on his hands and knees trying to place the alignment of the enemy when he was hit with a bursting shell, or piece of a shell, tearing his breast away and cutting his heart in two as smoothly as if it had been done with a knife, leaving imbedded in his heart a leather watch guard which he wore around his neck. This piece of watch guard was sent by myself and other friends to his wife in Texas, but whether or not she ever got it we do not know. It was two or three inches long. Gen. Granberry succeeded him in the command of the brigade. He also was killed while on his horse in front of Franklin, Tenn., on one Saturday night. The bridle from his horse I secured, and sent by some member of his staff to his wife, but never heard as to whether or not she received This Texas Brigade was the best body of men I ever saw.

it.

AN IMPRESSIVE SCENE.

I close these personal reminiscences with one scene, that crowded long hours into a few moment, as the sun set that bright September day. While Cleburne's Division was rapidly marching down our lines from left to right, as before stated, we were halted for a few minutes to rest. While standing there, at the days' end, in the twilight of two worlds, that "bridge of light and darkness," of "time and eternity, of "life and death,” at a point where the grandeur and awe-inspiring vision entranced and thrilled every sense, the conflict burst suddenly upon our eyes. And though many years have since then come and gone; yet that occasion, that hour, that sunshine, that time and shade and place, and all pertaining thereto, I cannot forget, and back to which, like some green spot, amid the worldless shades of memory, the mind reverts, the fancy often wanders, and around which the heart still loves to linger, sighing that the "silver cord of goodness" cannot be seen in that "black surge-cloth of crime." There resting, as the dying day, in "twilight wept itself away," ere darkness "fell from the wing of night," I saw the clouds of sulphuretted smoke blot out the light of the sun, as they floated among the tree-tops, and rose above the thunder of cannon, the crash of falling trees, and iron and leaden hail, the groans of the wounded, and too above no drizzling shower, but rattling storms

of musketry, barbed with the leaden fires of death. I saw the musketry flashes light up the gloom of the battle-field at its every volley, all which seemed blended in one continued, refulgent blast, whilst over the field was strewn the wrecks of time and hate as the kindly soil arank up the blood of the invader. I saw there the death-stranded hopes of many a Southern home go out in eternal night, as husband, father and son were slain upon their native soil. I saw the struggling sunbeams from heaven as they fell through the rifts in the floating smoke, like silvery streams, and as they gleamed in purple and gold upon the bosom of the hurrying waters of the Chickamauga river, as its dark and bloody tide was re-baptized in that proud but mournful soubriquet, the "River of Death." I saw the soil of the Sovereign State of Georgia drenched in blood, bristling with the bayonets of the invader, like wheat upon the hill-side. I saw the blood of native-born Southerners trickling down their rugged heights and mingling below with the waters of the "River of Death," go blushing to the ocean. There I saw my countrymen one by one, and ever as I gazed, drop into the tideless sea of death, "like snowflakes upon the waters;" "one moment bright and full of life, then gone forever." And this the world calls war, glorious war! But the wise have a far deeper meaning for this madness of the hour. What is it but murder, red-handed murder? That

"Telescope of truth,

Which strips the distance of its phantasies

And brings life near in utter nakedness,

Making the cold reality too real?"

And you, survivors of that hour and conflict, you who lived amid the pangs that others died of, you who heard that day the loud, contending guns that shook old Georgia's rock-ribbed hills and vales, as the sun, unattended by a single cloud, slowly sank like a monarch, retiring to rest beyond the horizon; you can never forget while life lasts that scene of death and carnage. Nor can you cease to be grateful to the Great Spirit, to whose love and keeping "man's inhumanity to man" sent those grand comrades that you were the spared monuments of His inscrutable will and protection, where life, it seemed, could not last a moment; nor can we cease to hold in our minds and hearts the

memory of their valor and undying deeds, during all time and eternity, those deeds that will live though their bones are buried there. Farewell. For you, slain comrades, who sleep there, glorious soldiers of a lost cause, light the fairest page of earth's history with the splendor of your deeds immortal! "On Fame's Eternal camping ground" you have "spread your silent tents" forever. Sleep on, you silent ranks of the undying dead, never more to rise till the morning of the Resurrection. Patriots, who

poured your blood on the invaders sword, in defense of the raped Constitution of your country, and for the preservation of the liberties of your native land, sleep on! for the Hand of Vengeance one day will awake them from their long and dreamless sleep for recompense in the Great Beyond. "Vengeance is mine, I will repay, saith the Lord." Sleep on, comrades of the Lost Cause, for we, the spared monuments of divine will, rejoice in the belief you have not died in vain, nor laid down to an eternal sleep that shall know no waking; joys again that those immortal spirits shall not forever wander diconsolate along the echo-less shore, homeless, aimless shadows of the dead past. We know that the tongueless silence of the grave some day shall resound with the waking voices of your sleeping dust. That the dawn of day ere long will break upon the long and starless night of the grave, and from that dark abode the quickening spirit of the living God shall roll away the stone from those sepulchres, for you to live in the Great Beyond, where the spirits of the great and good shall forever dwell in a land where "Goodness is no name, and happiness no dream.”

"Could I embody and unbosom now
That which is most within me,

Could I wreck my thoughts upon expression,
And thus pour forth heart, mind, passions,

Feelings, strong or weak-all I know

Bear, feel and yet seek, into one word
And that word were lightning

I'd speak-But as it is,

I live and die with a most voiceless

Thought-sheathing it as a sword
In the scabbard of forgiveness!
Hear it earth, behold it heaven!

Have we not sufficient things to be forgiven,

And if not to desperation driven,

Because not altogether of such clay

As rots into the souls of those-That day we surveyed."

HOSPITALS OF THE CONFEDERACY.*

BY C. H. TEBAULT, M.D., SURGEON-GENERAL, U. C. V., of New Orleans, La.

Mr. President and Comrades of the Association of Medical Officers of the Army and Navy of the Confederacy:

It is a great pleasure independently of meeting each other to find ourselves at the home of our dear old Octogenarian Comrade, the venerable S. H. Stout, M.D., Surgeon and Medical Director of the Hospitals of the Confederate Army and Department of Tennessee, who administered so successfully and brilliantly this great medical arm of the military service, so fortunately committed to him. Confusion very largely prevailed at first. The ablest surgeons and assistant surgeons, the most experienced, were in the field, while the hospital service was chiefly under the management and direction of the little experienced contract physicians, not immediately connected with the service. The required examinations that shortly followed as the service became better organized, weeded many of these out, and placed in charge of established medical posts, and in immediate charge of the Confederate hospitals, our very ablest surgeons and assistant surgeons.

Out of the chaos above described, soon order and perfect organization ensued, and the splendid hospital system which continued from this date uninterruptedly to the termination of the war, and for which result the chief credit is justly due to the superb administrative ability and tireless energy of our distinguished comrade and always friend, Medical Director of the Hospitals, S. H. Stout, M.D. Vastly more could and should be said respecting the official work of our beloved director of this great department, but time forbids, and I must pass on to the consideration of other points.

On the moment of an expected battle a telegram would be

Paper Submitted at Dallas Reunion for Publication in the Official

Organ.

sent by the Medical Director of Hospitals to the hospital post surgeons within easy and rapid communication with the expected battle-field, to forward to the more distant hospital posts all the sick and wounded who could bear transportation, and immediately to telegraph for available supplies for the impending emergency. The able Medical Director in the field was always in instant official communication with the Medical Director of Hospitals. Thus there obtained no loss of time or confusion in knowing where to send the sick and wounded on such instant and momentous occasions, and hospital posts were thus always in readiness to receive and care for our wounded and desperately sick comrades whenever a battle was joined between the contending armies; and our unequalled women, God bless them all, likewise duly notified, were also prepared with the needed delicacies possible to provide with their own dainty and loving hands that our straightened circumstances permitted.

When the wounded and sick were received, all who could stand a bath were given one, and those who could not were carefully sponged off, and all were dressed in clean cotton material for the bed and placed upon neat and comportable bunks. The surgeons and assistant surgeons, the nurses and our superb womanhood were all now actively and zealously employed under a systematic and well organized authority.

Our corps of nurses were detailed from the hospital sick and wounded who were convalescent, and were at once most faithful and efficient in the discharge of their duties under the close, vigilant and devoted eyes of our surgeons and assistant surgeons, who were unwearying in the performance of their tremendous and highly taxing duties. The prescriptions, written in a book kept for that purpose, were put up by soldiers detailed for that express purpose, but always under the direction and supervision of the ever-watchful medical officers of the hospitals. In all this important service the writer cannot recall a single instance in which an accident of any moment occurred, so careful and exacting was the supervision.

Again, on the eve of expected battle the nearby hospital posts would send on special cars a delegation from their medical staff accompanied by nurses, all of our nurses being men, and all needed appliances within our means and a supply of such deli