VIRGINIANS, FOR YOUR LANDS, FOR YOUR HOMES, FOR YOUR SWEETHEARTS, FOR YOUR WIVES!

Wednesday, April 3, 2013



Dallas, Georgia, May 27, 1864

It was here, at Dallas, that Tom B. Winston was killed. An awful shriek rang out into the air! Shall I ever forget it? It pierced high above the dreadful din. ‘Oh-h-h Christ Almighty!’ That is what the voice said. Voice of anguish in tones that froze the blood. It was Tom Winston. His legs were torn off just below the waist. As we went on fighting, a hasty backward glance saw him borne away on a stretcher, his face and mangled form covered, a shapeless, shrouded heap. Not dead, but fatally hit. He died that night.

One of the saddest deaths at Jonesboro was Louie Vincent. Not over seventeen- a short, thick set, fair haired boy from New York. Gentle, good natured, faithful for duty. Our works were in a miserable state … We were exposed enough as it was, and men were being hit. … The ceaseless din of firing went on all about us- the ping, pang, thud, and hiss of the sharpshooters’ bullets. It was a desperate plight. Something must be done. 

… Louie sprang up, spade in hand. I do not think he had thrown but one spade full of dirt, when he was struck. … ‘I am killed,’ he cried. Felix Arroyo laid him gently down on his side in the trench, the blood gushing in torrents from the mouth. Only one word more, escaped his lips, ‘Mother!’ That mother, alas, was far away and could not help. May it not have been that the very best help a mother can give her boy, she had already given, in prayer and instruction and loving Christian example, laying him at Jesus’ feet, I cannot say. Philip Stephenson, Fifth Company, Washington Artillery

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