Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 16.djvu/356

 350 Southern Historical Society Papers.

most anxious to meet the members of Forbes' Bivouac, of which I am rejoiced to be a member. Then, too, I wished to attend the meeting that I might embrace the occasion to pay some fitting tribute to my dear friend, that true man and grand soldier, the late Major- General B. F. Cheatham. During and after the war I was brought into such intimate association with him that I learned to appreciate his high character. He was a man of admirable presence. In man- ners he was free without frivolity cheerful, kind-hearted and ever easy of access. He was a gentleman without pretension, and a poli- tician without deceit; a faithful friend and a generous foe; strong in his attachments and rational in his resentments. He was clear in judgment, firm in purpose, and courageous as a lion. He was faith- ful in expedients, prompt in action, and always ready for a fight. He won victory on many a well-contested field ; but, best of all, he ruled his own spirit.

Born in Davidson county in the year 1819, he was brought up upon his father's farm ; accustomed to work from his boyhood, he was never ashamed of it after he became a man.

In 1846 he went to Mexico as captain of a company in the First Tennessee regiment. With this company he fought at Monterey, and there first attracted marked attention for his promptness, skill and daring courage. His regiment, foremost amongst the bravest, baptized in its own blood, came forth from the conflict the " Bloody First," a cognomen significant of its fearful christening. After the battle, Captain Cheatham volunteered, with characteristic courage and humanity, to remain and bring in the wounded who, during the long and arduous conflict of the day, lay where they had fallen on the field. With his regiment he had participated in the preceding battles of Palo Alto and Resaca de la Palma. After the time for which his company had enlisted had expired, he returned to Nashville and raised a regiment, of which he was made colonel by acclamation. On reaching Vera Cruz as senior colonel, he had command of a brigade and joined General Scott on his march to the capital of the country. He participated in nearly all the battles around the City of Mexico.

The late war found him engaged in the peaceful pursuits of agri- culture. In May, 1861, he was made a brigadier-general of the Con- federate army, and was sent to the assistance of General Pillow at New Madrid. He remained with the army in Missouri till it crossed over to Tennessee and Kentucky ; repulsed the Federal gunboats, Lexington and Conestoga> in the first naval engagement on the Mis-