Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 28.djvu/68

 <>'2 Southern Historical Society Papers.

sider it fortunate now that I didn't get it. I determined to remain at the University till the end of the session, but in May, just before the election of Thursday, May 24th. I went home to Hanover county, desiring to vote in my own county for the Ordinance of Secession,, which was at that time ratified almost unanimously by the people of the State.

The Yankees about that time raised their "hue and cry " about Union feeling in the South, and especially in Virginia, but the unan- inimity with which the Ordinance of Secession was ratified well shows what we knew all along that there was no Union feeling in the State, except in some of the Western counties, which have now still further earned our contempt by forming the Yankee " bogus "" State of "West Virginia." The Yankees have found out by this time that the farce of Union feeling in the South is played out, and have left off making a fuss about it.

After voting for secession (and for the taxation amendment too, tho' it was against the interest of Eastern Virginia), I returned to the University, but very little studying of text-books did I do during the remainder of the session. My attention was chiefly occupied in studying Mahan's " Field Fortification" and other works on engi- neering, especially the articles of the encyclopaedias in the University library, as I had some idea at that time of applying for an appoint- ment in the Confederate Engineer Corps, but I gave that out before the close of the session, and on Tuesday, July 2d (the session ended on the 4th \ I left the University with the intention of joining Cap- tain (now Brigadier-General) W. N. Pendleton's battery, the " Rock- bridge Artillery," which some of my friends and college-mates had already joined. After remaining at home long enough to get ready, and declining to apply for an appointment in the Marine Corps, which I believe I could have gotten at that time, I left Hanover Junction with my friend Channing Page, now Captain of a battery, July i3th, for Winchester, both of us intending to join Pendleton's battery, which we found encamped near that place.

I remained at Mrs. Barton's a few days, and on Wednesday, July 1 7th, enlisted in Pendleton's battery, in which I then had several friends, amongst others, Dave Barton,* Holmes Boyd, 8 Bob McKim,* Liv. Massie, 6 Clem. Fishburne, 6 and Channing Page, T with all of whom I had been at college the previous session, and Joe Packard, 8 an old school-mate at the Episcopal High School.

I was not destined to remain quiet long after entering the service,