Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 18.djvu/177

 General Joseph Eyyleston Johnston. 177

One day at Sweet Chalybeate Springs a party of us, as usual, as- sembled before dinner around one of John Dabney's great hail storm juleps. The General was sitting near the baluster of the portico, which overlooked the wall beneath, and deep in some narrative, when he was interrupted by a shriek which startled us all and broke in upon his story. After looking over to learn the cause of such a yell, he recom menced his story, but was again interrupted as before. Again he looked and then again resumed, only to be interrupted a third time. Then, fierce as Mars, he looked down upon the screamer and said: "Why don't you runaway? Why don't you runaway?" I sug- gested, " Well, that's fine advice for a great general to give." Turn- ing savagely upon me he said, " If she will not fight, sir, is not the best thing for her to do to run away, sir?" Mrs. Johnston, with a burst of her hearty laugh, said, "That used to be your plan always, I know, sir." This relieved us all, and we burst into a laugh in which he joined as heartily as any.

A TERRIBLE GOBBLER.

The cause of all of this disturbance was a young women in a red cloak, upon whom a turkey gobbler charged. The girl stood still and shrieked with fear. The gobbler then wheeled in retreat, only to make another charge on the paralyzed women, whose only recourse each time was to shake herself and shriek until somebody came and drove the gobbler away.

ELDER'S PICTURE.

The State of Virginia employed Jack Elder to paint his portrait a good one it is and now hangs in the rotunda of our Capitol beside Lee's. I was asked to go and keep him in chat while the artist was at work. The first sitting was occupied by him in discussing Napo- leon, Marlborough, and Wellington, and a short-hand writer might then have recorded the most terse critique ever pronounced on these great commanders.

THE LITTLE CORPORAL.

He placed Napoleon above all of the generals of history. Marl- borough he ranked above all Englishmen, and censured Macaulay for allowing his partisan feelings for King William to transmit as history his aspersions of Marlborough. Wellington he considered a very great general, but denounced his brutality in Spain in giving to sack by his British soldiery the cities of the people he was sent there to defend and protect.