Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 30.djvu/264

 256 Southern Historical Society Papers.

JOHNSON'S ISLAND.

Thrilling Story a Visit Thereto Recalls.

"THOflPSON CONSPIRACY."

The Desperate Exploit of Major C. H. Cole The Capture of the Philo Parsons -Execution of Beall.

The following appeared in the Cincinnati Commercial Gazette September, 1902:

More than thirty years have passed since the earth was tossed into the last Confederate grave on Johnson's Island. Thirty years have cooled the hot blood of the South and temporized the temper of the North. The bayonets of the Civil war are rusting now; the saber's edge is turned, and the heavy cannon that thundered o'er the battle-field is molded into implements of peace. Thirty years have blotted out the evil memories of the past and brought forth the dawn of the new morn and the new South. The Stars and Bars are amalgamated with the Stars and Stripes. But as the events of those thrilling times are slowly but surely fading from view some little incident now and then recalls, with a vividness that smacks of yesterday, a great epoch in the war, forming the rivet that connects the chains of history.

An old gray-haired man, with his wife leaning on his arm, wan- dered through the Confederate cemetery, on Johnson's Island, during the recent encampment of the Ohio G. A. R., at Sandusky. The couple passed before each stone and scanned the inscriptions with apparent interest. Three times had the narrow avenues be- tween the graves been traversed. The old man rested wearily upon his walking stick.

"Not here," said he, "not here."

The words had barely passed his lips when his wife, falling on her knees, cried out: " Oh, father ! father !"

The old man hastened to her side. She was supporting herself by a marble slab, which bore this inscription:

LIEUTENANT COMPANY G, JOHN C. HOLT,

Sixty-first Tennessee Infantry.