The Butler weekly times
January 04, 1882
PAP
PRICE. Warrensburg.
His letter to the Hawkeye
respecting the reminiscences called to mind by that visit, is full of interest.
Mr. Burdette thus writes. I was here many
years ago, "enduring the war." We marched through Warrensburg one
bright sunny day, but it didn't look like this. We were seeking for a man name
Price, and he and a retiring modest which is the birth right of noble men,
shrank from our gaze. An agile and tenderhearted old confed he was. Hard to
catch, when he wanted to get away, and always soldierly and gentle in his
treatment of prisoners that was one of the brightest traits in the character of (Major) Gen. Price, "Old Pap" Price," his own men and the Union troops alike were
fond of calling him.
Major General Sterling Price.
I remember in some of our dealings with him in this
Missouri campaign, in some of our interchanges of shells and courtesies, Gen.
Price became possessed of a number of Union prisoners. Being at that time busily
engaged in getting away, the old man did not care to be troubled with
prisoners, so he paroled the whole crowd.
But he knew that these unarmed men would,
in all probability, be murdered, and at any rate plundered and ill-treated by
the guerrillas and bushwhackers which swarmed all through these parts of
Missouri at that time; I tell you, brethren, there were some bad citizens in
Jackson County in those days, so Price sent a guard of cavalry with the paroled
men, with a flag of truce, and these regular Confederate troopers escorted
their prisoners to our lines, turned them over and got receipts in due form,
and then galloped away to rejoin their column and get ready to shoot at us, whose friends they
had guarded so carefully and characteristic of General Price.
I drove over to old Warrensburg with my
friend, Mr. Cockrell, son of General Cockrell, Senator from Missouri. That is
we went from Jackson, Mississippi, to Vicksburg together. Not quite together either for the General got there first, and it was more than a month before Grant
and I, I mean me and Grant could get in. And then we had to climb over the
fence and there wasn't a bone or a crust in the pantry. The General's son
treated me better than his father, because of the first night I was in town,
with characteristic southern hospitality, he threw wide open the doors of his
home, a home made doubly charming and hospitable by the accomplished lady whose
graces crown and adorn it and I was his welcome guest.
No comments:
Post a Comment