Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 29.djvu/355

 Storming the Stone Fence at Gettysburg. 339

Summarizing General Forrest's personal characteristics, Bishop Gailor says:

"He was a man of immense physical strength and size, and as resolute and audacious in personal encounters as in open battle. His temper was terrific when aroused, and his language was often violent and profane, but never vulgar or obscene. He detested uncleanness, as he despised wanton cruelty and oppression. In the midst of the battle, when his own life was in peril, he was known to rescue a woman and a child from danger and carry them to a place of safety. While he thrashed a scout with hickory switches for giving him sec- ond-hand information, he degraded one of his best officers for trifling with the affections of a woman. He was unlearned, but not illiterate. A pen, he said once, reminded him of a snake; and his spelling was consistently wrong, but his natural eloquence could move his troops to enthusiasm. He did not know the first principles of the drill, be- ing astonished at the effect of a trumpet-call upon disciplined soldiers, and yet, in his general plan of battle he instinctively adopted mature tactics of Napoleon. He exercised an authority as a general that was absolutely intolerant of the slightest variation or disobedience, and yet he was the genial companion of his subordinates, and was foremost in exposing himself in every battle. He had twenty-nine horses killed under him, and with his own hand slew thirty men."

[From the Charlotte (N. C.) Observer, March 11, 1901.]

STORMING THE STONE FENCE AT GETTYSBURG.

A Morganton Confederate Veteran Tells of the Charge.

I, Thomas Espy Causby, born in Burke county, N. C., June 24, 1831, make this statement of my recollections of the great battle of Gettysburg. Many of the little details I have forgotten, but of the facts herein stated I am absolutely positive. I enlisted as a private in Company D, Sixth North Carolina regiment, in the early part of the year 1861, and fought in the ranks through the war until I was