Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 30.djvu/137

 The Last Tragedy fo the War. 129

food, clothing, fire, doctors or nurses to the aged, the women or the children.

Some tender hearts who do not deserve to be called sentimental will be revolted at the claims suggested in this paper of such benev- olent functions for slavery, but only by closing their eyes to the truth can they deny the claims.

CHARLES L. C. MINOR, 1002 Me Cullocli street, Baltimore.

[Prom the New Orleans, La., Picayune, January 18, 1903.]

THE LAST TRAGEDY OF THE WAR.

Execution of Tom Martin at Cincinnati, by the Order of General Hooker.

By Captain JAMES DINKINS.

During General Hood's campaign into middle Tennessee, in No- vember, 1864, a young cavalryman by the name of Thomas Martin, whose home was in Kentucky, decided to steal away and pay his family a visit. The army passed within fifty miles of his home, and he doubtless thought he would be able to visit his parents and get back before being missed.

Soon after his arrival at home, however, the Federals made him a prisoner and charged him with being a guerrilla.

He was sent to Cincinnati and confined in a cell. Not long after- wards he was brought before a court-martial and convicted of having been a guerrilla and sentenced to be shot.

Tom Martin was a mere boy, and was illiterate, unable to read or write, but he protested his innocence and insisted that he was a regular Confederate soldier.

A.t the time the sentence was rendered no one expected (so it is claimed) that it would be carried into execution.

The members of the court, as well as General Willich (at that time Military Commandant of Cincinnati), did not for a moment expect that the boy would be executed.

The Federal authorities stated that the sentence had been rendered