Notes and Queries.
Was “Cedar Run” (Slaughter's Mountain) a Federal victory?We had always thought that the Confederates won that field. It so happened that our Brigade (Early's), and our own Regiment (the Thirteenth Virginia Infantry) opened the battle — that we saw the enemy driven back some two miles--and that General Early having charge of the “truce to bury the dead” which the enemy asked, and Jackson granted, we witnessed the burying of the poor fellows who had been killed in their vain efforts to break through “the Stonewall,” and that we conversed with a number of Federal officers who frankly admitted that “the Foot Cavalry” had given their old friend “Stonewall's Quartermaster” a very sound drubbing. [573]
But we have seen a newspaper report of a paper read by Rev. F. Denison, Chaplain of the First Rhode Island Cavalry, before the Soldiers and Sailors Historical Society of Rhode Island, in which he makes, concerning this battle, the remarkable statement (if rightly quoted): “Thefield remained with the Federals.”
We have not had the privilege of seeing the full text of Chaplain Denison's paper [we should be glad to do so] and we are at a loss to imagine the grounds upon which he puts this claim. Surely he does not accept now Pope's Munchausen dispatches, and the popular accounts in the northern newspapers of the day, which claimed every battle as a “Union victory.”
Desired an Owner for a Watch.--A gentleman, a citizen of Brooklyn, New York, who served as an officer of the Thirteenth New York volunteers in our late war, desires to convey to the next of kin or legal representative of its deceased owner, a watch which was taken from the body of a first lieutenant of the Eleventh Virginia infantry, who was killed at the battle of Five Forks, about 3 P. M., April 1, 1865. We will take pleasure in being the medium of any desired communication.--R. A. Brock, Richmond, Va.
Can New England rightly claim Captain John Smith as one of her heroes?
It is very well known that poor old Virginia “lost pretty much all by the war” ; in fact northern writers have almost forgotten that we had a history down in this part of the country. George Mason, Patrick Henry, Edmund Pendleton, John Marshall are forgotten names; even Washington divides honors with Abraham Lincoln. We were not quite prepared, however, to see Captain John Smith transferred to the New England Pantheon; but we find a review in the New York Times of a work by Charles Dudley Warner, published by Henry Holt & Co., entitled: The Admiral of New England. Captain John Smith, sometime Governor of Virginia and Admiral of New England. A study of his life and Writings. We are pretty well gobbled up. What about the Peaks of Otter and Rock-fish Gap? Are they on the Penobscot River?--Central Presbyterian.
