ed movement of our army after the
battle of Resaca, placed my stock farm in line of the Federal advance
and exposed my family to capture. My command, Tommey's Legion, passing
within five miles of the place, I was enabled to give them warning, and
they hurriedly boarded the last south-bound train. They reached
Jefferson County safely but without any baggage, as they did not have
time to move a trunk. An effort was made to save the family silver, much
of it very old and highly prized, especially a silver cup known in the
family as the "Bride's Cup" for some six or eight generations and
bearing the inscription:

"Ye bryde whose lippes kysse myne
And taste ye water an no wyne
Shall happy live an hersel see
A happy grandchile on each knee."

These lines were surrounded with a wreath and surmounted by a knight's
head, visor down, and the motto: "Semper Fidelis."

This cup was hurriedly packed with other silver in a hair trunk and
intrusted to Eneas with verbal instructions as to travel. He drove an
old-fashioned, flea-bitten blooded mare to a one-horse wagon full of
forage and carried all the Confederate money the family left, to pay his
expenses. He was last seen, as I ascertained soon after the war from a
wounded member of my command, about eight miles southeast of Atlanta,
asleep in the wagon, the mare turning to the right instead of keeping
the straight road to Macon. Eneas was a faithful negro, born and raised
in the Tommey family and our belief is he was murdered by army
stragglers and robbed of the trunk. He had never been over the road he
was traveling, as we always traveled to North Georgia by rail, shipping
the horses likewise. His geographical knowledge consisted of a few
names--places to which I had at different times taken him, and in the
neighborhood of my home, such as Macon, Sparta, Louisville, and the
counties of Washington and Jefferson. If given a chance to talk he would
probably confine himself to "Lady Chain," the mare he was driving;
"Lightning," the noted four-mile stallion temporarily in my possession;
the Tommey family and our settlement, "Tommeysville." On these topics he
could talk eighteen hours a day.

I have no hope of ever seeing Eneas again, for if living he would have
gotten back if he had to travel all over the South to do it, but there
is a bare chance that the cup may be found, and I am writing to gratify
my daughter, whose wedding day is approaching. All brides in the family,