Show w 2 7 i A winter afternoon twirl ot bron leaves rested thick with snow A low gray sk of clouds A bank high streamlet that has ceased to flow gaunt armed bare trees close wrapped in sleety shrouds ia lone bird fares athwart the drooping sky with sure strong wing which pulses swift and true forth from his covert slinks the fox his eye with hunger wild roams searching out the view A farmhouse gableau lying wrapped in snow A wraith of smoke corkscrewing the cold air the muffled shapes of men which come and eo and bitter biting winter everywhere tedward tEd waid carlisle litsey in housekeeper christmas day in the army christmas in the early daya said addelson Add lson ballard was not like the christmas of this day I 1 was raised in warren county ohio and in a neighborhood of well todo people and here is what I 1 received from my par ants as a christmas gift one big red apple a little sack of choice hick cry nuts one pair of knit mittens and a home made knit comforter to wear round the neck in addition myself and brothers were given jointly 1 cents worth of powder which was inserted in a corncob and exploded or in a hole bored in a log in the latter case ether boys joined with their allow ance of powder to have a greater ex for candy we had maple sugar and for a special treat the young people of the neighborhood the hills near our bouse to hear the boom of cannon fired in cin fifteen miles away I 1 was that sort of a buckeye boy said the sergeant but of a ater date I 1 wore a red or a red and white comforter as late as the year before the war and my christmas gift from home in 1862 was a pair of closely knit red and black mittens we were then in camp at nashville land the mittens were a great comfort but were regarded as a standing joke by the boys we were rather coolly quartered and ate began to prepare for christmas a week in advance some ot the boys went ten and fourteen miles east and south from camp looking for geese or turkeys chickens or rabbits those who went outside our lines came back excited laud anxious they found everywhere indications of a general advance on christmas day and they dian didn t like ailt on dec 24 we knew that we bould spend christmas in camp but we would advance in battle or der on the morning of dec 26 know ing this and knowing that three days rations were to be cooked and car ried in haversacks the boys were not as merry on christmas day 1862 as they had expected to be the whole army moved toward murfreesboro a the morning of the and as we passed waiting ments I 1 saw several pairs of mittens not unlike my own and I 1 knew that the good mothers at home had thought of our cold hands one man I 1 saw wearing a red comforter such as I 1 had worn as a boy and I 1 won dered it he came from the old home neighborhood five days after that as our brigade emerged from the cedars at stone river pursued by the rebels I 1 saw in the rebel line two men wearing red comforters one of these wore the comforter around his neck with ends crossed on his breast and carried down to his belt the other wore the comforter around his neck with ends flying I 1 wondered if these were like my mit tens christmas gifts from old fash boned homes I 1 knew later because ithe rebel of the red comforter fall mot five steps from where I 1 went down with two wounds it was very cold that and the wounded in blue and gray began to creep toward aitho little depression in which I 1 was flying and snuggled close to keep from freezing some one took my mittens out of my pocket and put them on my al most helpless hands and someone else able to use his hands lifted my head to Us lap as he sat on the ground and I 1 felt the ends of a knit comforter brush across my face it was fresh and new and he said it was a christmas gift and he had worn it in battle because his mother had sent it that led the freezing men huddled together like shivering hogs to talk of christmas and their people at home and I 1 found that my man of the red comforter was of the same stock as myself his family set aling in tennessee mine in ohio he had a pair of mittens like my own and the customs of the two homes were not unlike gedid not freeze that night and were carried off the field next day but in such con dialon that I 1 never knew how we were removed nor what became of the men who came to me that night some of them did not recover I 1 was told in the hospital but I 1 was in formed that not one ot the dead wore a red comforter all this came back ito me yesterday when I 1 came across a white army hospital blanket with initials worked in red in one cor ner it was my blanket and I 1 re that as the letters went into shape forty two years ago a tear fell from my mother s eyes for every stitch taken I 1 lived however to carry that blanket through the war chicago inter ocean war chargers of great soldiers there has seldom if ever been a and more loyal war horse than traveler who caned his master gen diee through scores of battles and came through them all without a scratch it Is said that he whinnied pitifully when he followed the gen brals coffin to the grave and it was not long after that while grazing a nail became imbedded in his toot and he died of lockjaw copenhagen bore stonewall jack son through ten fierce battles before the fatal bullet struck his rider he survived through an honor ed and lovingly tended old age until 1886 and he may be seen today to day fluffed and cleverly mounted in a glass case in the library of the soldiers home in richmond va gen sheridan s famous black horse rienzi long survived all the dangers of war and died loved and mourned in 1876 his body was mounted and Is to be seen in the museum ot gov arnor s island in new york bay it seems to have been the fate ot most of these famous horses to sur vive their masters such however was not the lot of nellie gray the handsomest charger in all the canted crate army nellie with gen fitzhugh lee on her back seemed to bear a charmed life so many were the dan gers she escaped until at last she fell in the very thickest of the fight at the battle of winchester cincinnati the most floied of all gen grant s horses was more tor dunate than nellie for he survived all the horrors of the civil war and died as sincerely lamented as he had lived respected veterans well behaved the conduct of the great body of the 33 old soldiers who are in mates of the national soldiers homes is excellent said gen martin me mahon president of the board of managers of those institutions at the arlington only about 3 per cent of the vet erans give us any trouble and these are not nearly so annoying as the well meaning misguided contingent of outside cranks and temperance fa natlis who are continually trying to tell the president and congress how the homes ought to be run for in stance the outside band ot philan would abolish the canteen established in the homes despite the fact that experience has proved their great usefulness these canteens 01 beer halls since nothing but beel Is sold in them make directly tor the good ot the inmates and are in the interest of sobriety and decent conduct the amount of beer sold to the individual is strictly limited and no one who is intoxicated is al lowed to enter the beer hall nor can drinks be obtained after clock p m the evils of intoxication on the part of veteran inmates come from patronizing drinking resorts in the vicinity of the grounds where the old soldiers can buy cheap whisky and where they are often drugged and robbed the abolition of the canteen would simply increase the patronage of these resorts instead of reducing temperance such a policy would promote it and would make drunkards out of many now leading respectable lives washington post the badge money cannot buy new pension ruling some years ago said an army of fleer the war department held that a soldier who was injured while out hunting in the far west on a pass was disabled in the line of duty and there tore entitled to a pension it was held that as hunting Is encouraged by mill tary authorities the sold er in doing what he was encouraged to do was not thereby taken out of the line ol 01 duty following the precedent establish ed in that case the department has recently held that a soldier whose leg was broken by being run over by a street car was disabled in the line ol 01 duty in this case it appears that the soldier was absent from his post on a pass for the purpose of self improvement that is he was going to at tend a lecture it was held by the authorities that this case was analogous with the other one referred to in that each case the passes were granted with the idea that the use to which they would be put would be a benefit to the soldier and through him to the service washington star sat saying the curious gen louis wagner president of the third national bank of philadelphia occasionally Is seen limping and lean ing heavily on a cane this generally arouses inquiry as to the reason his lameness it is not generally known that gen wagner periodically suffers from a wound sustained in the civil war and instead of going into i long explanation he has had pre pared a printed card which he hands to all inquirers the card is as fol lows no sir it is not either rheu or the gout neither was I 1 thrown out of a carriage or kicked by a horse at 5 23 p m on saturday aug 30 1862 at the second battle of bull run I 1 foolishly got in the way of a rebel bullet and lost three inches of the shin bone of the right leg this old wound sometimes breaks out that is what is the matter oldest chiv I 1 war monument the soldiers monument which stands near the congregational church at kensington conn is the oldest monument in the country to the mem ory of the men who fought in the civil war the monument wa july 26 1863 |