Motion Picture Story Magazine (Feb-Jul 1911)

HIS TRUST. 15 significance after the great conflicts on the Peninsula, at Antietam, Chancellorsville, Gettysburg and elsewhere. Both sides were untried, and poorly drilled and disciplined. In the morning the advantage was with the Union troops, before whom the Confederates were retiring, but the opportune arrival of Johnston's reinforcements reversed conditions with the inevitable panic to be expected from green troops, a large part of whom had scarcely indulged even in target practice. Our Colonel Jack was there with his regiment, and he was in the forefront of the battle, which raged with great bitterness on the Henry farm. "Look at Jackson's brigade !" exclaimed Lee, "it stands there like a stone wall !" and thus was nicknamed one of the greatest, and, next to Lee, perhaps the greatest of the leaders of the Confederacy. The line taken up by Stonewall Jackson was a very strong one. The ground was high and covered in the rear by a heavy wood. Lee, Barton and Evans rallied on this, and, here, too, came the much needed and timely reinforcements from the Shenandoah Valley. Against these the Federal commander, McDowell, had at hand the brigades of Sherman, Willcox, Franklin and Porter, also Palmers' battallion of regular cavalry and the regular batteries of Eicketts and Griffin. It was the 21st of July and fearfully hot. These troops had been under arms since midnight, and were weary from their long and dusty march from the Potomac. But the assault was bravely made, the northern part of the plateau was carried, Eickett's and Griffin's batteries secured a position near the Henry house, and everything seemed to favor the Union side. Back and forth over this bloody field the tide of battle ebbed and flowed. Rapidly the troops from the Shenandoah were hurried to Jackson's support, as fast as they could be debarked from the arriving cars. So long as these batteries held out, the battle was not lost. And here occurred one of those accidents which bore heavily upon the result, if it did not actually cause the defeat of the Union Army. Just when their infantry supports had been driven back, a regiment of infantry came out of the woods to the right of Griffin. Believing it to be Confederates, he was aoout to open on it with canister at short range, when Major Barry insisted that they were Union troops sent to support his battery. But a deadly volley proved his mistake. Nearly every cannoneer and horse was cut down, and the usefulness of the battery was destroyed. Eicketts suffered equally. Desperately wounded and with Lieutenant Ramsey, next in command, killed, further resistance was impossible. The tide had finally turned in favor of the Confederates and Bull Eun past into history. Colonel Frazier's regiment was sent to reinforce Jackson. Twice it had been called upon to resist flank movements, the last penetrating the rear of some small earthworks which had been previously thrown up in anticipation of this fight. It was here, while heroically meeting and repelling the second charge, that Colonel Frazier fell, pierced thru the lungs by a minnie ball. His faithful adjutant caught him in his arms, and, dragging him to the rear and out of the range of fire, received from him the last messages to his darling wife. He asked that lie might be buried where he fell, and his last words were pitiful. He begged that his sword should be delivered to his wife, as a lasting and sacred memento of his devotion to the cause for which he Lad given up his young life. "Take — this — sword to — her," ho gasped, "give her — my love, and — tell George — to be faithful — to his trust.'* The cessation of hostilities for a time enabled the adjutant to carry out the wishes of liis beloved Colonel. Who shall attempt to describe the meeting of the messenger of this sad news and the widowed and brokenhearted wife? lie described with enthusiastic praises the gallantry of his friend and Colonel he delivered with extreme tenderness the last messages of the dying hero, he admonished the weeping slave to be faithful, and, plac