Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 38.djvu/398

 with his horsemanship when he visited the Academy in 1860. He had a boyish appearance; erect and neat address. Modest as a maiden in the social circle, he shone with the mild effulgence of a Pleiade, but the battlefield transformed him into the fiery meteor with its dazzling glare. He was calmly and recklessly brave, and saw men torn to pieces around him without emotion — his heart and eye were on the stern work he was performing. Even in early youth he fought a larger schoolfellow till he fainted with exhaustion."

Well might old Stonewall say: "If you have another Pelham, General Stuart, give him to me."

His mind was of a pious turn, his language was chaste, and his bearing courteous. He never spoke of himself, and seemed to be unconscious of his own merit. Like his dear friend and comrade, Major James Breathed, his body rests in a little unpretentious graveyard at Jacksonville, Ala.

Such is the imperfect picture I have attempted to draw and present of my old friend and commander. March 17th being the anniversary of the death of that brilliant soldier, I could not fail in my duty as a member of the original battery of Stuart's Horse Artillery, in a small measure, at least, to say a word on this, the forty-fifth anniversary of his sad removal from this earth. I know it is presumption on my part to attempt the task of paying in the smallest degree tribute to Pelham and Breathed; but my sense of duty and the great love I hold their memory in prompts me to pen these lines that I have submitted to the paper for publication. I realize that men like Pelham and Breathed never die ; their names will go thundering down the decades of ages a household word in the American nation, not only in the South, but in the confines of this boundless continent of ours. I cannot cease to return thanks that it was my good fortune and great privilege to have been in close touch with these two heroes ; to have known them, and been under their command ; to have sat at the same camp fire and been inspired by their loyalty and love for the starry cross banner of the Southland.


 * Very sincerely,

H. H. Matthewe, Pelham-Breathed Battery, S. H. A. Pikesville, Md., March 10, 1908.