Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 19.djvu/272

 266 Southern Historical Society Papers.

I shall, with your approval, transfer this old flag to the Governor of Alabama, who, like yourself, was a gallant soldier in the great war which has placed on record the fiercest battles ever fought. When we fight again, General, it will be side by side. May you have many happy returns of this season of peace and good will you have so happily illustrated.

With high respect and warmest wishes for your happiness and prosperity, I am

Sincerely yours,

DABNEY H. MAURY. To General^. W. COLBY,

Department of Justice.

[From the Richmond Dispatch, October 13, 1891.]

FEEDING PAROLED CONFEDERATES.

An Order Upon Which Sixty-five Thousand Rations Were Drawn.

Major Thomas E. Ballard, United States deputy marshal, yester- day showed a Dispatch reporter the original of the following order, which has never been published before, and which was one of the last orders issued by a Confederate officer at Appomattox:

OFFICE CHIEF COMMISSARY, A. N. V., April u, Major Thomas E. Ballard, C. S. :

You will assume the duties of looking to the supplying with food the troops of the Army of Northern Virginia until they shall have been sent off from their present positions. You will also see the C. S.'s of the Federal army as to the arrangement en route for food for the men on the way to their homes. The C. S.'s attached to troops of course must accompany their respective commands.

R. G. COLE, Lieutenant- Colonel.

As Major Ballard replaced the time-worn document tenderly in an equally time-worn pocket-book, he remarked with a smile of satisfac- tion: " And I didn't play small either; I drew from the United States Government for our boys sixty-five thousand rations. I hadn't had anything to eat for so long I was a little greedy."