nger officers none excelled General Hoke, of Lincolnton,
N. C. He entered the army as a company officer at less than twenty-four
years of age. He was soon Colonel of the Twenty-first North Carolina
Regiment, then Brigadier-General. He had not handled a brigade long until
General Lee witnessed one of his gallant and most successful assaults and
rode out of his way to compliment him personally, and there is no doubt,
as the sequel will show, but that General Lee ever after held him in his
highest confidence. He was with Stonewall Jackson in all his most
brilliant campaigns. After his gallant brigade had been worn to a frazzle
following Gettysburg, he was sent back to North Carolina to rest and
recruit. After a few months of comparative rest, he boarded a train at
Weldon, N. C., and went to Richmond to President Davis and presented a
campaign for Eastern North Carolina, upon the completion of the gun-boat,
_Albemarle_, nearing completion at Halifax, N. C., stating that he thought
with two brigades beside his own that he could take Plymouth, Washington
and New Bern, N. C., and thus clear his State of all its invaders.
President Davis heard him patiently and then said he was glad to hear some
one who still thought something could be done, and said he would transfer
some ranking officers and give him the forces suggested. This writer got
these facts from his uncle, Gen. John F. Hoke. General Pickett had made an
expedition against New Bern February 1, 1864, with six brigades, and could
easily have taken it had not some of his plans miscarried. An account of
General Hoke's taking Plymouth and Washington and his service at Drury's
Bluff and at Cold Harbor are given in a former chapter. General Hoke was
sent back to North Carolina and commanded at Wilmington, N. C., finally
surrendering with General Johnson. General Hoke is very modest about
exploiting his brilliant military career; but we have it on the authority
of the _Charlotte Observer_ that during the last months of the war General
Lee became apprehensive that his health might give way at any time, and
looking over the whole field, selected General Hoke to take his place as
his successor, and had such an understanding with President Davis and
General Hoke. At the beginning of the Spanish-American War, we heard that
President McKinley offered General Hoke a Brigadiership, and he modestly
declined it. The writer met General Hoke twenty-five years after the war,
and upon complime