Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 1.djvu/667

Rh the seaboard and at Port Hudson and Vicksburg. His most daring exploits were summarized in a &quot; joint resolution of thanks to Commander John Taylor Wood and his officers and men,&quot; passed by the Confederate Congress, February 15, 1864, &quot;for the daring and brilliantly executed plans which resulted in the capture of the U. S. transport schooner Elmore, on the Potomac river; of the ship Allegheny, and the U. S. gunboats Satellite and Reliance; and the U. S. transport schooners Golden Rod, Coquette, and Two Brothers, on the Chesapeake; and more recently in the capture from under the guns of the enemy’s works of the U. S. gunboat Underwriter, on the Neuse river, near New Bern, N. C., with the officers and crews of the several vessels brought off as prisoners.&quot; He was promoted post captain; in August, 1864, commanded the cruiser Tallahassee in a cruise to Halifax and return, capturing thirty vessels; and in the winter of 1864-5 he was offered but declined the command of the James river squadron. He bore to President Davis the dispatch announcing the withdrawal from Petersburg, and accompanied the President in his journey southward. When Mr. Davis was captured he made his escape, and in company with General Breckinridge made his way to Florida, sailing thence in an open boat to Cuba. Since the war he has resided at Halifax.

John Burress Sale, of Mississippi, served as military secretary with rank of colonel of cavalry to General Braxton Bragg, who was assigned to duty at Richmond February 24, 1864, and under the direction of the President, was charged with the conduct of military operations in the armies of the Confederate States. Colonel Sale was thus brought into intimate relationship with the President s military staff. He was born in Amherst county, Virginia, June 7, 1818. His father, an eminent divine, moved to Alabama, and he was educated in the