Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 20.djvu/60

 54 Southern Historical Society Papers.

Captain Wilson wrote to Captain Litchfield as follows :

BRIGHTON, IOWA, May 26, 1892.

Captain LITCHFIELD, Abingdon, Va. :

DEAR SIR AND COMRADE To-day for some cause I am reminded of you and the time you captured me about twenty miles south of Fredericksburg, Virginia, in the doctor's yard you found us. Have you ever been back to pay the doctor for the bark you fellows knocked off his locust trees with your bullets ? By the way, captain, did not the doctor slip away from the house and tell you we were there ? We always thought so.

I hope this will find you well, acknowledge the receipt and I will send you my photo. Send me yours, please. I send you a paper also. Remember me to the boys.

Yours truly,

L. C. WILSON.

Captain Litchfield replied to this letter, inviting him to the reunion, and his answer was as follows :

BRIGHTON, IOWA, June 2d, 1892.

Captain C. T. LITCHFIELD, Abingdon, Va. -

MY DEAR FRIEND Yours of 3ist ult. received to-day, and you may be sure I was glad to hear from you.

It would give me great pleasure to meet the " boys " of your old command. How I would love to shake the hand of that tall, good natured orderly-sergeant who made me feel so good as we marched out of the woods to surrender. We did not know but that you would eat us up on the spot, for you were the first armed Confederates we ever saw, and when that miserable fellow shot Sergeant Guinn after we had surrendered, we made up our minds that we were gone up sure enough.

But we soon learned the situation and found that we were captured by the brave First Virginia. But about the orderly. As I came out of the woods with fear and trembling, in front of me was your orderly. I also was an orderly. When he saw my rank he ha !