DEAR SIR: It is always a pleasure to hear from an old Confederate soldier, and I thank you for your letter and for the kind way in which you speak of me; but that incident about my mother never took place. This is the first time I ever heard the story about my grandmother and I am sure it is equally without basis. My grandmother was very infirm during the war and I do not believe she ever lived at Philadelphia. She was with us in New York. Sincerely yours, THEODORE ROOSEVELT. REV. J. L. UNDERWOOD, _Kellam's Hospital, Richmond, Va._" Elsewhere in this volume it is shown that John G. Whittier's famous story of Barbara Freitchie and the Federal flag is a myth, pure and simple. This letter of the President consigns the two stories above mentioned to a similar fate. The Southern people will thank him for it. They desire nothing but simple truth about their honored President and his family. THE LITTLE GIRL AT CHANCELLORSVILLE General Fitz Hugh Lee loved to tell of the little girl in the house where Stonewall Jackson breathed his last, who said to her mother that she "wished that God would let her die instead of the general, for then only her mother would cry; but if Jackson died all the people of the country would cry." SAVED HER HAMS In Mississippi a farmer's wife heard that a regiment of Federal cavalry was coming. She had a smoke-house full of fine hams and shoulder meat. Immediately she went to work, and when the soldiers came they found the meat lying all about the yard with a knife hole stuck deep into each piece. The Yankees rushed in and began to pick it up. "What's the matter with this meat, madam? How came these holes in it?" "Now, look here," said she, "you know the Confederate cavalry has just been here, and if you all get poisoned by that meat you must not blame me." They left the meat. HEROISM OF A WIDOW [Mrs. Allie McPeek, in Southern Historical Papers, Volume 23, page 328; from the Atlanta (Ga.) _Constitution_, November 9, 1905.] It was on the first and second days of September, 1864, General Hardee of the Southern forces was sent to Jonesboro from Atlanta with 22,000 men to head off a formidable flank movement of the enemy, which had for its purpose to cut off Southern communication and thereby compel the evacuation of the city of Atlanta. The flank movement consisted of 40,000 men, and was commanded chiefly by Major-General John M. Schofield, together with General Sedgwick, who was also a corps commander, and consisted of the best fighters of the Federal army.