Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 28.djvu/315

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THE PHI GAMMA IN WAR.

A Federal Officer Speaks of Incidents of Great Struggle.

DENUNCIATION OF GENERAL SHAW.

The Speaker Condemns the Utterances of the O. A. R. Man at At- lantaInstances of Restoration of Good Will and Fraternity.

A Virginia reader of the Dispatch, who heard Colonel James M. Wells, of Toledo, O., deliver an address at the fifty-second annual convention of the Phi Gamma Delta Fraternity at Niagara Falls, July 2Sth, was so pleased with the sentiments of the former Union soldier that he secured the manuscript and sent to the Dispatch for publication.

The address will be read with interest by the thousands of Phi Gams, of the South. It will be especially interesting to Confederate veterans, in view of Colonel Wells's denunciation of General Albert D. Shaw, of the Grand Army of the Republic, for his recent attack on the Southern soldier in a speech at Atlanta. Colonel Wells, by the way, fought under Sherman, and placed the first Federal flag on the City Hall in Atlanta when that place was captured.

Colonel Wells's speech was in response to the toast, "The Phi Gam. in War." He said:

On July 21, i86r, at Bull Run, Va., while the battle raged, a Federal soldier lay in the burning sun, sorely wounded, thirsty, faint from loss of blood, racked with pain, and almost famished. His regiment had moved to the right, and he was alone.

Out of the woods near by stepped a stalwart Confederate, with blood on his face and a handkerchief bound about his head. He approached the wounded Federal, stooped over him, and said: "Hello! Yank; be you wounded.be you much hurt?" The Yank, rousing himself from his drowsiness anil stupor, looked up into the bronzed and kindly face above him anil said: "Water." "For suah! " said the Confederate, and water came to the lips of the Fed- eral, and he drank, and drank, and drank, while his head lay upon the arm of the Confederate. As he ceased drinking, the Confede- rate said: " Drink more, Yank, you need it." "No, thanks, sir,"