ler, your own and the Rev. Mr. Lumpkin's. And it gives me some little satisfaction that, in seeking to make amends to you and the members of your noble regiment, at this late day, I have been instrumental in searching out your antagonist and captor.
Suppose you send him a copy of Captain Bassler's fine address. Perhaps it wouldn't do though. The address calls one of the captors a "freckle faced traitor." Was Lumpkin freckle faced? * * * * Will you pardon my evident haste. I am very busy. With good wishes.
Yours sincerely,
In conclusion, the evidence is indisputable that the only recapture of colors in the first day's fight was made by Color Guard H. H. Spayd, who temporarily rescued from a foeman our State flag; and, had our regiment still been at McPherson's, he would have brought in his trophy in triumph. Too modest to blow his own horn his heroic deed remained for a long time unrecognized; and he and his brave color comrades were maligned, on the supposition that the fictitious recapture claim in H.'s official report and in Bates' history, was true—that the colors were returned to them, and that they lost them a second time.
But truth is mighty and must in the end prevail.
