Page:Minutes of the Immortal Six Hundred Society 1910.djvu/29

28 went. I feel that I have a rich inheritance to hand down to my only son in being one of a distinguished body of men whose record will live after all of the party shall have passed away. While I cannot be with you to shake the warm hand of friendship and enjoy meeting with men that I know have been tried as men never were before and proved to be men in every sense of the term my heart and best wishes will be with you and the comrades whom I shall ever love and hold their memories as a sacred trust.

J. W. Helm.

Maj. J. Ogden Murray, Charlestown, W. Va.


 * Your postal of the 26th ult. was duly received and ought to have been answered more promptly. I have been in no condition physically or mentally to do so sooner and now I have the writing done for me, so please excuse me for the delay, assuring you it was not a feeling of indifference, but of my inability to write sooner.

O how I wish I could be with you in Mobile, enjoying the little remnant of "The Immortals" in sweet, loving heart to heart converse with the dear old boys and mingle tears and smiles like April days, tears for the ones dead and gone and smiles for the ones still lingering at the portals of "that undiscovered land from whose bourne no travel returns," and where no alarm of war ever disturbs their peaceful and happy rest, and where corn meal, pickles or cats are never served by devils of human kind, but where we will be received by angels in white and shining robes with glad acclaim greet us in that glory land where we shall ever feast on love and nectar of heaven's own distilling.

With best wishes from your old comrade,

Salem, Va. F. W.


 * Gilliamsville, Buckingham County, Va., April 19, 1910.


 * I am sorry that I cannot attend the reunion at Mobile, Ala. You know that I have lost the best man to travel with I ever met with and its too great an undertaking for a man of my age to take with strangers. Give my love and best wishes to the boys and tell them that I am with them in the spirit if not in person, and if we never meet again on this earth let us try to meet in a more glorious world than this.

With a comrade's love I am, as ever, your friend and comrade,


 * Vanceboro, N. C, March 1, 1910.


 * It would afford me one of the greatest pleasures of my life to meet with you at Mobile but my physical condition will not permit. Time and that terrible ordeal we underwent at Morris Island, at Fort Pulaski, Hilton Head and on board of the prison ship Crescent, has made me an invalid, unable to risk the long travel to meet you. I send you this greeting through our secretary and comrade Murray, one of the foremost leaders in our group, ever trying to console us in our sufferings and privations unjustly inflicted upon us by the United States Government in 1864-65.

My dear old comrades, I often recall the ordeal. I think of those terrible days that tried men's souls and the temptation of the oath of allegiance to the United States to seduce us from our love and loyalty to the cause ot the South and disrobe us of our manhood and honor. I think of the starvation rations of rotten cornmeal and pickle to force us to perjure ourselves, and in all this my prayer of thanks goes up to God that I was one of the six hundred Confederate officers who suffered with you, and I thank God again and again for the courage and strength He gave us to be true unto the end. I love you all, the true men of the Immortal Six Hundred. I honor your manhood, I know your integrity