Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 14.djvu/377

 Several Incidents of ^'Christ in the Cam'p." 371

"Will" Baylor (as we used familiarly to call him) said to him: " I know the men are very much wearied out by the battle to-day, and that they need all of the rest they can get to fit them for the impend- ing struggle of to-morrow. But I cannot consent that we shall sleep to-night until we have had a brief season of prayer to thank God for the victory and preservation of the day, and to beseech His protec- tion and blessing during the continuance of this terrible conflict." Hugh White entered at once into the proposal, Rev. A. C. Hopkins (then chaplain of the Second Virginia Infantry, now pastor of the Presbyterian church at Charlestown, West Virginia, and one of those faithful chaplains who was always found at the post of duty even when it was the post of hardship or of danger) was found in the bivouac near by and gladly consented to lead the meeting. The men were quietly notified that there would be a prayer meeting at brigade headquarters as soon as they could assemble, and nearly the whole of this brigade and many from other brigades promptly gathered at the appointed spot. It was a tender, precious season of worship, there in line of battle and in full hearing of the enemy. Colonel Baylor entered into it with the burning zeal of the young convert — he had found Christ in the camp only a short time before — and Cap- tain Hugh White, with the ripened experience of the Christian of long standing, and many of the participants realized, with Jacob of old, that the place was "none other than the house of God, and the gate of heaven." In the great battle which followed the next day, when the Confederate line was pressing grandly forward and driving everything before it, Will Baylor, with the flag of the Stonewall brigade in his hands and the shout of victory on his lips, fell in the very forefront of the battle and gave his brave, noble, young life to the land and cause he loved so well and served so faithfully. Hard by and about the same moment Hugh White was shot down while bearing the flag of his own regiment and behaving with most con- spicuous gallantry, and those two young men who mingled so lov- ingly in the prayer meeting of the night before had entered through the pearly gates, were walking golden streets, and were wearing fade- less crowns of victory —

" That crown with peerless glories bright Which shall new lustre boast, When victors' wreaths and monarch's gems Shall blend in common dust."

Major Robert Stiles, of Richmond, in an address delivered in 1869