Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 30.djvu/287

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.

The ( 1 (tni>fiif/n n<l Ii<i/t/c of T^/iicJilxirtj. 279

dead. But, Mr. Editor, I fear you will give me a boil down if I further intrude on your space. When we old soldiers get in our war talk mood we hardly know when to stop.

Allow me to say in closing that we who wore the blue have none but the highest respect for those of the gray, who so bravely op- posed us on many a hard-fought field. And as soldiers, regardless of by-gone differences or the opinions of others, we can stand on one broad level proud in the fact that we demonstrated to the world that the American soldier is second to none on the face of the earth.

A. Du Bois,

Company F, Seventh New York Heavy Artillery, Albany, N. Y.

THE CAMPAIGN AND BATTLE OF LYNCHBURG.

An Address Delivered Before the Garland-Rodes Camp

of Confederate Veterans at Lynchburg, Va.,

July 18, 1901.

By Captain CHARLES M. BLACKFORD, of the Lynchburg Bar.

With Appendix of Rosters of the Lynchburg Companies in the Service of the Southern Confederacy, 1861-65.

The strategic importance of the city of Lynchburg was very little understood by those directing the military movements of the Fed- eral armies during the Civil war, or, if understood, there was much lack of nerve in the endeavor to seize it.

It was the depot for the Army of Northern Virginia for all com- missary and quartermaster stores gathered from the productive ter- ritory lying between it and Knoxville, Tennessee, and from all the country tributary to, and drained by, the Virginia & Tennessee Railroad. Here, also, were stored many of the scant medical sup- plies of the Confederacy, and here many hospitals gave accommo- dation to the sick and wounded from the martial lines north and east of it. Lynchburg was, in addition, the key to the inside line of