Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 36.djvu/287
Escaped from Fort Delaware. 271
From the Richmond Dispatch, August 19, 1900.
ESCAPED FROM FORT DELAWARE.
A Mississippi Confederate Tells How He and a Comrade Escaped — Afloat On a Ladder, Then a Tramp.
A Story Told by Sergeant Warren D. Reid, of Mississippi, for Mrs. J. R, Mcintosh, Vice-Regent, Mississippi Room, Confederate Museum.
The following thrilling story of the escape from Fort Dela- ware, by Sergeant Reid, of Holliday, Miss., and his cousin, Joseph G. Marable, now deceased, was written at the request of Mrs. Mcintosh, to be placed by her in the Mississippi Room of the Confederate Museum, in this city, where, with relics and mementoes, and other stories of brave Mississippians, carefully and affectionately placed by the vice-regents, generations to come will read of the self-sacrifices and heroism of the Confed- erate 'soldier.
Sergeant Reid's story is as follows :
CAPTURED AT GETTYSBURG.
On the 3d of July, 1863, the Eleventh Regiment of Mississippi Volunteers, A. P. Hill Corps, with the other troops of Lee's army, made the memorable charge at Gettysburg. Company H, of the above regiment, of which I was orderly sergeant, went into that charge with twenty-six officers and men. We had fifteen of that number killed in the charge. The remainder, with the exception of three, were wounded and captured. I was among the latter number. My wound was slight.
That evening, after the charge, those of us who were cap- tured and able to march were corralled (about 1,500) near the battlefield, and that night and the next day marched to West- minster, Md., where we were put on a train and run into Balti- more ; marched from the depot to Fort McHenry, where we remained all night — a night never to be forgotten by one of those ragged, half-starved Confederates. It rained all night.
