Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 07.djvu/564

This page has been validated.
556
Southern Historical Society Papers.


substance, of his behavior in command of the guns on the left at Sharpsburg, that an army should have a Pelham on each flank. At Fredericksburg, General Lee calls him, in his official report. "the gallant Pelham," for with two guns, away out on the plains in front of Hamilton's crossing, he enfiladed the advancing Federal lines of battle, halted and held for a time Doubleday's division of the attacking column, sustaining, as General Lee says (in his official report), the fire of four batteries "with that unflinching courage that ever distinguished him." An old farmer in Maryland, looking at Pelham's beardless face, girlish smile and slender figure, said to General Stuart, "Can these boys fight?" Aye! let Lee and Jackson tell. Let Stuart's general orders, March 30th, 1863, speak: "The Major-General Commanding approaches with reluctance the painful duty of announcing to the division its irreparable loss in the death of Major John Pelham, commanding the horse artillery. He fell mortally wounded in the battle of Kelleysville, March 17th, with the battle-cry on his lips and the light of victory beaming from his eye. His eye had glanced on every battlefield of this army from the First Manassas to the moment of his death, and he was, with a single exception, a brilliant actor in them all. The memory of the gallant Pelham, his many virtues, his noble nature, his purity of character, is enshrined as a sacred legacy in the hearts of all who knew him." Young as he was, "his mourners were two hosts—his friends and his foes." He was worthy to have his sword buried alongside of him, that no less worthy hand might ever wield it. An honor paid to chevalier Bayard by the Spanish General in Francis the First's fatal Italian campaign against Charles the Fifth. Sleep on, gallant Pelham, and may your spirit "look through the vista to the everlasting hills, bathed in eternal sunlight."

Spring had now arrived. "A thousand pearly drops, thrown by dewy morning into the valley's lap," could everywhere be seen. "And pushing the soil from her bonny pink shoulders, the clover glides forth to the world. Fresh mosses gleam in the gray, rugged boulders, with delicate May dew impearled. In the aisles of the orchard fair blossoms are drifting. The tulip's pale stalk from the garden is lifting a goblet of gems to the sun." Hooker must move now. On the 11th of April, he tells Lincoln that he "will have more chance of inflicting a heavier blow upon the enemy by turning his position to my right, and, if practicable, to sever his connection with Richmond, with my Dragoon force, and such light batteries as may be deemed advisable to send with them." On the