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Show CAPTHL M. AUSTIN Of ALABAMA TELLS OF MANY DEEDS OP VALOR Tho IL'0 members of th- G. A. R. who belong to the department of Alabama mingle In a spirit of cordiality with the Cnlted Confederate Veterans in that southern stronghold, according to Captain Cap-tain H. M. Austin, past commander of George A. Custer post in Birmingham, who arrived in Salt Lake City as a delegate dele-gate to the cneumpment Sunday. Although the bitter memories of the war still linger In the south, the old confederate con-federate soldiers treat the union veterans like brothers, and "the enemy's country" Is now a misnomer for the southern states, says Captain Austin. Another prominent Alabaman who came to the encampment is J. C. Clyde Miller, past commander of the department of Alabama. Ala-bama. Captain Austin enlisted us a private. April, lS'Jl, nnd was not mustered out until March. 1SC(5, his term of service only lacking two months of reaching five years. He came out of the war a captain. cap-tain. Ho was a member of Company C, Second Iowa infantry. Besides being a veteran himself ho is also n son of a veteran, his father. A. P. Austin, having belonged lo the. Ninth Illinois cavalry. Captain Austin's company fought In thc Sixteenth corps under Grant, Sherman, Washburn and E. O. C. Ord. His regiment regi-ment was the first over thc works at Fort Donnelson. nnd bore tho brunt of the . i terrible firing. Austin's company lost half of Its men in fifteen minutes, going into the battle with seventy-two men and reaching the Inside of the fort with only thirty-six alive. Captain Austin also fought at Shiloh. under Hallerk, and at Corinth, under Ord. "I saw the terrible slaughter of union men at Corinth." said Captain Austin, "when Colonel Moore of Missouri threw a whole regiment to certain death by sending send-ing them on a charge In columns of four across a half-mile open field, straight against he . confederate fort. Tho union soldiers never tllncheJl, though tho regiment regi-ment was annihilated. They" went right up to the fort and their charge was so fierce that four of the men were not killed until they had gotten over the enemy's cannon. "I was also in the battlo at Guntown. Mo., where Major Sturgls. who was In command of the union forces, sent several sev-eral regiments to certain death, a company com-pany nt a time. 'American schoolboys arc taught to recite re-cite Tennyson's 'Charge of the Light Brigade,' Bri-gade,' but the . men on both sides In thc civil war did more heroic, desperate and solf sacrificing things than did the 'gallant 'gal-lant 000' at Balaklava." Captain Austin was 70 years old last Mondny. lie has inarched at the G. A. R. encampments every year. |
