t with broken glass
and pieces of crockery, and they would roll it across the floor above,
while one would take an ax and pound on some bar iron that was leaning
against the wall, making a most hideous noise.
Charley Farmer said he supposed he was as well prepared to die as he
ever would be, but he said he would give ten dollars if he had his pants
down there.
Uncle Armstrong asked him what difference it made whether he had his
pants on or not, and Charley said he didn't want to be ushered into
the New Jerusalem with all his sins on his head, before the angels, and
nothing on but a knit undershirt.
They were discussing this question when they gave vent to a dying groan,
closed their eyes, and then all was still.
The prisoners thought it was all over, and they didn't stir for about
ten minutes. They thought the house had blown away, and left them alive,
and they were inclined to be thankful even for that; when Charley and
Will came down and opened the refrigerator, and told them the storm
was over, but that it was the almightiest cyclone that ever passed over
Kansas.
HOW JEFF DAVIS WAS CAPTURED.
The accounts of the capture of Jeff Davis, in his wife's clothes, which
have been published ever since the war, have caused many to laugh,
and has surrounded the last days of the confederacy with a halo of
ludicrousness that has caused much hard feeling between Mr. Davis and
the American people. His friends would have been much better pleased if
he had bared his breast to the cavalryman who captured him, and been run
through with a sabre, and died with some proud last words on his lips,
such as, "Who will care for mother now," or "The cause is lost. Send out
a search warrant to find it."
It was a terribly ridiculous ending to a great struggle, the way we have
been in the habit of reading the story, but now we have a new light on
the subject. Mr. Davis has written a book on the war, and in it he gives
the following particulars of his capture and the bravery he displayed.
Instead of sneaking off in his wife's petticoat, after a pail of
spring water, Mr. Davis describes that escape as being almost a bloody
encounter. He says:
"I had gone perhaps fifteen or twenty yards when a trooper galloped up
and ordered me to halt and surrender, to which I gave a defiant answer,
and, dropping the shawl and raglan from my shoulders, advanced toward
him. He leveled his carbine at me, but I expected if he fired he would
mis
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