SOUTHERN SOLDIER STORIES [Illustration] [Illustration: J. E. B. STUART--THE CAVALIER.] Southern Soldier Stories By George Cary Eggleston Author of “A Rebel’s Recollections,” etc., etc. With Illustrations by R. F. Zogbaum New York The Macmillan Company London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd. 1898 _All rights reserved_ Copyright, 1898, By The Macmillan Company. _Norwood Press J. S. Cushing & Co.--Berwick & Smith Norwood Mass. U.S.A._ TO “JOE” I DEDICATE THIS BOOK TO THE “JOE” SO OFTEN MENTIONED IN THESE STORIES HE WAS MY LOVED COMRADE IN ARMS, AND A SHARER IN ALL MY WAR EXPERIENCES HE IS NOW Dr. Joseph W. Eggleston OF RICHMOND, VIRGINIA PREFACE The use of the first personal pronoun singular in any of these stories does not of necessity mean that the author had anything to do with the events chronicled. “I tell the story as ’twas told to me.” CONTENTS PAGE How Battles are Fought 1 Joe 7 Around the Camp-fire 11 An Unfinished Fight 18 A Family that had no Luck 22 William 25 A Cradle Captain 29 Who is Russell? 31 “Juanita” 48 Scruggs 52 Joe on Horseback 55 A Rather Bad Night 57 The Women of Petersburg 70 Ham Seay 74 Old Jones’s Dash 76 A Woman’s Hair 80 A Midnight Crime 85 A Little Rebel 90 Twenty-one 97 A Beef Episode 104 Bernard Poland’s Prophecy 107 A Breach of Etiquette 121 The Lady of the Green Blind 124 Youngblood’s Last Morning 128 Billy Goodwin 133 Manassas 137 My Last Night on Picket 143 Griffith’s Continued Story 147 A Cheerful Supper of Cheers 155 How the Tar Heels Stuck 157 “Little Lamkin’s Battery” 159 Curry 171 Gun-boats 175 Two Minutes 179 Si Tucker--Coward and Hero 182 War as a Therapeutic Agent 188 “Notes on Cold Harbor” 191 A Plantation Heroine 203 Two Incidents in Contrast 206 How the Sergeant-major told the Truth 210