Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 39.djvu/84

 72 Southern Historical Society Papers.

Some years after the close of the war President Davis, ob- serving Colonel McAnerney in a vast crowd he was addressing, called the colonel to his side and declared to the audience: "This man commanded the Confederate troops that saved Rich- mond, its people and the government on the night of the Dahlgren raid." A just tribute to the man and to the battalion. The writer regrets that rolls of the other companies are not available. Though the "boy company" has received more con- spicuous and special official mention than any of the other com- panies, its members were only a part of the thin line of battle that moved not out of its tracks in the intense and eventful crisis of the night of ]\farch i, 1864, when all quit themselves like men.

G. W. J.