580 NortH Carotina Troops, 1861-’65.

 

 

Our Surgeons, Doctors J. F. Shaffner and John A. Vigal,
were the kindest and best of men. They were ideal Surgeons
—capable, honest, firm, sympathetic, self-sacrificing, coura-
geous and unremitting in their attentions to the sick and
wounded, oftentimes exposing themselves to imminent peril
in the discharge of their official duties. By such unflinching
heroism and devotion to duty they won the undying gratitude
of the entire command. Dr. Richard B. Baker was an able,
conscientious surgeon, the equal in every respect of Drs.
Shaffner and Vigal, but after the battle of New Bern he was
transferred to another command.

Amid the gloom of our defeat we found that among the
Federal soldiers there were some big-hearted men. An officer
of the Thirty-third said to a Federal Commissary: “Give
me some bread for my men, for they have had nothing to eat
for three days.” “I can’t do it,” said the commissary, “but
walk about the tent carelessly and fill your haversack with
crackers and loaf sugar, and your canteen with whiskey, and
I won’t see you.” The officer did it.

I shall always have a soft place in my heart for the mem-
ory of General Grant. He treated us with great kindness
and consideration, and did much, very much, to blunt the
sting of defeat. It is his best, his greatest, monument.

The Southern soldiers were the equals, in every possible
respect, of any soldiers that ever fought for God or man. The
world must bow before such men. We failed only because
it was impossible to succeed.

 

 

 

 

“Tt is not in mortals to command success,
We did more, we deserved it.”

James A. WESTON.
Hickory, N. C.,
9 April, 1901.

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