der, Company K,
Mecklenburg County--young, tall, and bravest of the brave. During the last
week in May, 1864, in the breastworks at Bermuda Hundreds, on the morning
that we took Gen. B. F. Butler's picket line and our dead and wounded were
brought back, Capt. Alexander was standing in the midst of our company
talking to our Captain Grigg, one of our young men, Thomas Nowlin, a
gallant soldier and a cousin of mine, was seized with an epileptic fit,
when Captain Alexander was the first to his assistance, and, kneeling
over him, did everything he could for him. If he had been one of his own
men or even a brother he could not have shown more sympathetic interest.
This greatly impressed me as to the real character of the man, and
verified the adage, "the bravest are the tenderest." I was greatly hurt a
few weeks later when this noble young officer fell in battle. I think
about the 20th of August, on the Weldon railroad. He was of the sanguine
temperament of the Scotch-Irish type.

Our Captain, B. F. Grigg, had a wife and baby that he thought more of than
of the Confederacy after hope of success was on the wane. He held out
faithful to the end, but was so glad when the cruel war was over that he
turned Republican and was for many years postmaster at Lincolnton and a
successful merchant. He went in early--joined First Regiment of six
months' volunteers--and was in first battle at Bethel, Va.; but he got
enough by and by, and wanted to quit.

Brigadier-General Matt. W. Ransom, our Brigade Commander, is too well
known to the people of this country to require an extended introduction by
me, he having served twenty-four years in the United States Senate and
four years as Minister to Mexico. All who have known him recognize in him
the highest type of the old-time Southern Christian gentleman. As an
officer he held the deserved love and highest respect of all his men. He
was scholarly, gentle, sympathetic, and a most pleasant and entertaining
orator. He would go anywhere in the State to address his old soldiers,
always giving them the most patriotic advice. He was an enthusiastic
optimist on the great resources and possibilities of our great united
country. The last time he addressed the Confederate Veterans of Shelby,
N. C., about two years before he died, money was raised and tendered him
to pay his expenses, when he said, "No! no! I can not take the boys'
money; I don't need it, and if I did I could not take it."

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