Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 34.djvu/283

 Colonel William Todd Robins. 275

From the Times- Dispatch, June 9, 1906.

COLONEL WILLIAM TODD ROBINS.

A Confederate Hero.

December n, 1906. Editor of the Times- Dispatch :

Sir: You will find accompanying this note a brief sketch of the life and services of Colonel William Todd Robins, which the Magruder Camp of Confederate Veterans requested me to enclose you for publication in the Confederate column.

Very truly yours,

MARYUS JONES.

WILLIAM TODD ROBINS.

The ranks of the veterans of the great war between the States are thinning with fearful rapidity. The Confederate veterans have illustrated, no less in the peaceful avocations of life than on the battlefield, that heroism which astonished the world. When the end came and all hope seemed crushed, they returned to their des- olated homes, and by patient industry built up the waste places. They had no government to pension them. The same men who, amid screaming shells and hissing bullets, had carried the banner of constitutional freedom to so many victories, went to the peace- ful pursuits of life with such indomitable patience and quiet industry, that ere a generation had passed their beloved Southland began to bloom and blossom like the rose. As we contemplate the heroic lives and the honored graves of such men we can say

"On fame's eternal camping ground

Their silent tents are spread, And Glory guards with solemn round The bivouac of the dead."

Among these heroic men, William Todd Robins bore no incon- spicuous part. Born at the home of his maternal grandfather in the county of King and Queen, on the 22d day of November, 1835, he was in his twenty-sixth year when the War between the States