Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 31.djvu/172

 164 Southern Historical Society Papers.

cident known to Mr. Hindman, which he supplies in his letter to the Picayune. Alluding to General Cleburne, Mr. Hindman says:

This gallant General was the bosom friend and comrade of my father, the late Major-General Thomas C. Hindman, and both of them lived and roomed together at Helena, Ark., before the war. One of the most important instances in the life of General Cleburne was evidently not known by General Hardee. It came near termi- nating his life and losing to the Confederacy one of its most gallant leaders. My father and General Cleburne were then very young men in their twenties when my father was a candidate for Con- gress as a Democrat in eastern Arkansas against one Dorsey Rice, who was making his campaign as a Whig. My father had made a speech at Helena, in which he mercilessly exposed Rice for certain questionable acts of his, and after he had finished speaking he and Pat. Cleburne walked together arm in arm down Main street to- wards my father's law office. Both were smoking cigars at the moment when they arrived before the wholesale grocery store of W. E. & C. L. Moore, when, without warning, three men sprang out from hiding just inside the door of the store and attacked them. Dorsey Rice fired so close to the left side of my father that the clothes were burned and a fearful wound inflicted, bringing my father for the moment to his knees. Instantly he sprang to his feet and drew his pistol, when Dorsey Rice ignominiously fled, with my father chasing him through the store and out through another front entrance into the street. My father fired at him several times as he ran, but failed to strike him, and he continued to chase Rice up the street until he himself fell exhausted from the loss of blood and was taken to his office in a weak condition. Dorsey Rice continued his flight, and left the town by crossing over into Mississippi.

At the moment when my father was shot, Pat. Cleburne was also shot clear through the body by John Rice, a brother of Dorsey, and he in turn fled down the street in an opposite direction from the flight of his brother, and succeeded in crossing the river into Mis- sissippi. Cleburne had been quick to draw his pistol, and turned slightly to one side as he was shot when he saw James Marryatt, a brother-in-law of the Rices, standing with his pistol in his hand. Thinking that Marryatt had shot him, Cleburne shot and killed him on the spot, and then fell insensible. Dr. Charles E. Nash, of Hel- ena, but later of Little Rock, and only recently deceased, waited on both of them, and undoubtedly saved their lives by his prompt and