nting his brilliant campaigns, as an actor and
eye-witness, he said, "Yes, when I had to fight them I tried to go at it
so as to make them think I was not afraid of them." He said he was not
quite twenty-eight years old when the war closed. General Hoke is an uncle
to Governor Hoke Smith, of Georgia. Besides being with General Hoke in his
Eastern North Carolina and Drury's Bluff campaigns, I got most of my
information from Capt. L. E. Powers, now of Rutherfordton, N. C., who
served with General Hoke first in the Twenty-first North Carolina Regiment
and then in his brigade, and under him through four years. Captain Powers
has represented his county three terms in the Legislature. He says he has
been under fire with General Hoke in about forty engagements and was
wounded several times.

A TRUE VIRGINIA BOY AND A BIT OF ROMANCE.

While this writer was located on the canal, boating wood for the men in
the trenches at Petersburg, winter of 1865, he became acquainted with a
widow lady, Mrs. Dean, and family of three children; a grown daughter,
Miss Jennie, and a younger daughter, Miss Lucy, aged about twelve, and a
little son, aged about ten years. They occupied a neat cottage near his
quarters. They were a nice, intelligent family, then in deep mourning for
a son and brother, the hope and mainstay of the family, who had fallen in
battle a few months before. Young Dean had proved so good a soldier and
had so distinguished himself for personal bravery from all the battles
through the Wilderness on down to Petersburg, that his officers had given
him a sixty day furlough to stay with his mother. When he had been at home
a few weeks, keeping in touch with his regiment, which was on the lines of
defense near by, in August, when the Federals seized the Weldon Railroad
and a desperate battle was expected, he kissed his mother and sisters and
hastened to join his regiment, and went into battle that day and shed his
life's blood that day in defense of his native city, his home and loved
ones, proving himself one of the greatest heroes in Lee's invincible army
of battle-scarred veterans. What nobler deed! What greater sacrifice can
any people show? Our relations with this good family became reciprocal.
They would do some cooking for us, and we would bring them some wood. I
guessed Miss Jennie was about my age, nineteen, medium in size, blue eyes,
dark hair, most lovely form and features, of an honest, sincere
expression. For all that