The following farewell order was published to the troops who remained with me after the battle of Mobile:
Camp six miles east of Meridian, Mississippi, May 7, 1865.
Soldiers—Our last march is almost ended. To-morrow we shall lay down the arms we have borne for four years to defend our rights, to win our liberties.
We know that we have borne them with honor; and we only now surrender to the overwhelming power of the enemy, which has rendered further resistance hopeless and mischievous to our own people and cause. But we shall never forget the noble comrades who have stood shoulder to shoulder with us until now; the noble dead who have been martyred; the noble Southern women who have been wronged and are unavenged; or the noble principles for which we have fought. Conscious that we have played our part like men, confident of the righteousness of our cause, without regret for our past action, and without despair of the future, let us to-morrow, with the dignity of the veterans who are the last to surrender, perform the sad duty which has been assigned to us.
Your friend and comrade,
Major-General Confederate Army.
Detailed Minutiæ of Soldier Life in the Army of Northern Virginia.
By Carlton McCarthy,
Private Second Company Richmond Howitzers, Cutshaw's Battalion.
Paper No. 3—On the March.
It is a common mistake of those who write on subjects familiar to themselves, to omit that particularity of description and detailed mention which, to one not so conversant with the matters discussed is necessary to a clear appreciation of the meaning of the writer. This mistake is all the more fatal when the writer lives and writes in one age and his readers live in another.
And so a soldier, writing for the information of the citizen, should forget his familiarity with the every-day scenes of soldier life and strive to record even those things which seem to him too common to mention. Who does not know all about the marching of soldiers? Those who have never marched with them and some who have. The varied experience of thousands would not tell the whole story of the march. Every man must be heard before the
