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Show GEN. MINTY AT SPARTA, TENN., IN 1863 In September of 1863 General Min-ty Min-ty with his cavalry was marching to- t ward Sparta. Tenti . hoping to Join the other regiments and camp for the I night. About four miles from Sparta the road led to a creek wit' a high wood-ed wood-ed hill on the opposite side On this ! hill two regiments of rebels were lying ly-ing in ambush and they opened fire on the column as it marched bj with Hank exposed When the head of the! column wu3 fired into, Mlnty was; with Captain Burnes. Captain Vale ami three orderlies, one of whom. Corporal Hodges, was carrying the brigade battle flag, riding about ten feet in advance of the column. .Mlnty, turning In bis saddle, said , to the bugler who was riding behind him: 'Bailey, give By compliments to Captain Mclntire and request him to send a dozen men to the front as an MiU jnr'A (nij rl As the biiir wheeled his nor1-and nor1-and started on the gallop, the volley Ironi the men in ambusn were fired 11 t he !ix men who were riding alone Captain ale had four holes bored across his shoulders by a raking shot from left to right. Sergeant Birch, one of the orderlies, was shot In the1 thigh and his leg broken General) Mlnty's horse received three bullets and the horses of both orderlies w ere I killed. The laBt number of the Chattanooga Chattanoo-ga Rebel ever published In Chattanooga, Chatta-nooga, a shoet about 12 inches square, and printed on one feide only, con-: tained the following paragraph "In the fight at Sparta on the 17th the notorious Yankee cavalry general Mlnty was killed " When Vale read this paragraph he aid he would have his beard shaved off so as not to be again mistaken for the general He was willing to be shot ab a captain but was not ambitions am-bitions to figure as a dead general A squadron of the Fourth I'nited States dismounted, engaged the rebels reb-els across the creek The Senin Pennsylvania now came up and the Third Indiana joined In the attack, and liie enemy was speedily driven off The brigade then ramped for the night, it being after 8 o'clock In the finbt a Fourth Michigan man named Lorvin was wounded by a ball entering the center of his chest, passing pass-ing obliquely Tt was cut out between two ribs, well back on the right aide j The wound was ragged and jagged, the bullet carrying a piece of the lune with It. On the followinc day, when the army made Its noon halt on the top of the Cumberland mountains, as General Gen-eral Mlnty was about to give the order or-der Mount. Or Fish said to him: "If vou can wait half an hour you will let poor Lorvin die In peace 1 The general sat down and u deep silence fell upon the column and tbo word passed in whispers Irom man to man that one of the gallant fellows fel-lows of the Fourth Michigan whs dying. dy-ing. Hundreds ol hi comrades of all leglruents came to the ambulance when he was lying unconscious. look-I ed In silence on him. and. wiping the tears from their eyes, turned quietly away. A full half hour passed In this way, when Ur. l ish, after examining Lor-ln Lor-ln the second time, pronounced him! dead, saying he might breathe once or twice more Mlnty replied that he could wait no longer, saying that he must reach the Sequatchie valley by night so as to cover the left of the army. The order to mount was given giv-en anl the arm mosed on. At the tune the column started on Lorvin was unconscious, his hands cold, hisi lips blue, eyes set aud breathing in gasp boui every tblrly seconds. Tlu- external hemorrhage from the wounds had ceased entirely for a number o( hours There was a man in the ambulance wiib Lorvin, and the road soon getting get-ting rough, he supported the soldier as well as he could, but when the de-' de-' scent of the mountain was begun no amount of care could prevent him from being most terribly shaken, each s'ep and Jolt expected to be the last, j About half waj down the moun-1 tain n change came over Lorvin and soon after n was noticed that he was bleeding profusely They were about three hours going down the moun- I tain. On arriving at the bottom of I the grade Lorvin was conscious, and breathing regular, pulse restored, and' he was rallying raptdly. That evening at Pikervllle Mlnty I was called to the ambulance and found ' Lorvin sitting up. and in answer to i question Irom Hr FIfIi inquiring oi ; his welfare said that he w as very j hungry and desired somethlnt; o e .4 1 Within a week b- wai convalescent, i He recovered rapidly, and if living to- j day owes his life to that rough bump- I : Ing ride down the Cumberland moun-' moun-' tains j Sergeant Heywood of the Fourth Michigan, who was performing the' j duties of topographical engineer to General Mlnty, wai shut in the knee ; at. Sparta the same day. but he refused re-fused to get into the ambulance, making mak-ing the remark thai n was only a1 ! scratch His leg Inflamed. He was sent to the hospital and afterwards j used crutches for six moDths Lorvin J was back in his regiment doing duty I I several months before Hevwood's "scratch'' healed. (Signed COL. B. F. BA1R. Ogden, Utah. General Mlnty Tor many vcars was i j resident ol Ogden |
