The circumstances of the capture of Jeff Davis have been the subject of heated controversy--in magazine articles and newspaper publications. Whatever may be the fact in respect of his wearing apparel at the time the Yankee cavalrymen overhauled the rebel president--whether he had on his wife's petticoats or was clad in masculine attire--certain it is that in abandoning the “lost cause,” and leaving Lee and his followers to “meet the foe with fresh defiance,” while he skedaddled, the “rebel hero”--still idolized and worshiped by the solid South--made a sorry exhibition of himself. On the chase up the Appomattox our boys were kept busy--in the saddle night and day--carrying dispatches to and from Meade's headquarters. It was a very interesting period. Sheridan was neck-and-neck with Lee, while the grand old Army of the Potomac was hot on the rebel commander's trail. Gen. Meade was seriously ill for several days preceding the negotiations that led to the surrender. But he kept in the saddle most of the time, in spite of the request of the headquarters' medical men, that he should “avoid all excitement!” It was strange advice to give under such circumstances. The hero of Gettysburg realized that the boys were knocking the bottom out of the Southern Confederacy, and he was determined to be in at the death. Whenever there was heavy firing at the front, Meade would get out of the ambulance, in which he rode when compelled to leave the saddle, and call for his favorite horse “Baldy.” Then he would ask his son George, one of his aids, or Major Jay or Major Emory, to assist him into the saddle. Once mounted, the general seemed to have a way of shaking off his sickness. He would press on to the head of the column and make a personal reconnaissance. As soon as the rearguard of the rebels--left to check the Union advance while the Confederate wagon trains and artillery were hurried to the west--was brushed out of the way, and the line of march resumed, the general would return to his ambulance, at times completely exhausted. April 4, 1865, was one of the hardest days of the chase. It was a forced march with only an occasional breathing spell when the advance was feeling its way along the roads leading toward Appomattox. That night we unsaddled with what we considered fair prospects of rest. But before we had settled down for sleep, a trooper dashed up to Meade's headquarters. The general was so ill that he could scarcely hold up his head, but when told that Sheridan had intercepted the Confederates, and predicted the capture of Lee's army if the Army of the Potomac would push to the front near Jettersville, Meade got out of bed and gave orders for the march to be resumed at two o'clock in the morning.