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tlttAttST’S BumMI AiVlUilVU AIN, A1UAIN LA, UA., SUiNUAV, SKmiJIWSK 7, l!U3.
3 K
Colonel Thomas Peters Recalls His Unique Ad
ventures and Continues, as He Did in the
Grim Days of Strife, Winning Life’s Battles
With the Shrapnel of Good Humor.
By TAELETON COLLIER.
— — KNTAIj serenity, sir,” sukl Colonel
jyl Thomas Peters as lie croaaed his
* * kiiet-s imslieii his spectacles farther
up on his forehead, and leaned back in his
chair a certain hot day last week, "rneutul se
renity is the secret as to temperature, and the
secret af all contentment and real happiness.
Because I rarely worry, come what may, I can
sit here, 73 years old, and find my pleasure in
recounting experiences and the adventures that
hvae been mine. At 73 I can recall them in
detail, name and word. I can write the signa
tures of Stephen A. Douglas. Hamlin, of Maine,
and others of the great old Senators whose
franks 1 signed when a boy 10 years old. It
is quite a blessing. Mental tranquillity, sir.”
He looked out from the porch of his home at
Forrest avenue and Jackson street. Across the
street a stout man stopped in the shade of a
tree, ran his handkerchief around the edge of a
wet eoar, willed a damp brow, and said some
thing to himself.
From tiie Peters porch it looked as if the re
mark was as hot as the sun that inspired it.
Colonel Peters saw it and laughed.
"If his mind were tranquil, he wouldn't feel
the heat,” he said. “I never worry about the
heat, ami therefore never feel it.
"It is just because of that frame of mind
that I could spend months in a Yankee prison
after the war had really closed. They would
not release me because there was no official
record that I was in the Point Lookout prison,
although knowing tlmt tiie war was over and
everybody else going home. But I didn’t worry,
come ill by way of Frederick, thence to Tow-
soutown, alsiut seven miles from Baltimore,
thence across country to Laurel and down by
Beltsville.
“We had Harry (Ulmer's battalion—-Harry
Gilmer, who, by the way, had gone across to
the Baltimore and Philadelphia Railroad and
captured General Franklin as he sat In a truiu
at Magnolia Station. We had also the Second
Maryland Cavalry. The boys of the command
reaching their homes during the raid, led us
'cross country away from tiie regular road*,
so the enemy never knew where to look for om
appearance.
"Except the Yanks behind us, none of the
others knew there was a ‘Johnny Reb' within
a hundred miles. And the chase hecume a great
game, especially when we would run over little
knots of the T'niou soldiers as they loafed, un
conscious that there was a soldier in gray any
where around. And on we went, cutting every
railroad and telegraph wire in Eastern Main
land.
"Once we came up to the brow of a hill und
saw r a bunch of Yankee cavalrymen in an or
chard below, lying on their backs and kicking
up their heel*. The advance guard spied them
We had one gun from Captain Griffin’s Balti
more Light Artillery, and when we saw the
Yanks in the orchard I was sent back to bring
up the gun. It was slipped for its aim across
the brow of the hill, and we dropped a shell in
the midst of the unsuspecting cavalrymen. At
the same time our cavalry made a dash and
charged them, and the chase led on to the
At home smiling over the vexation of his captors.
and could laugh nt my squad of guards, who
were forced to stay there solely on my account,
and who were fretting and fuming to gat
tiway*
“Yes, sir, I was a man without n name or
number, t couldn't lx* released because no rec
ord could Vie found on which to base the re
lease, I had been lost iu the shuffle. 1 was
there and I wasn’t there. Tiie war was over,
every other prisoner had been released from
Point Lookout except me. and the Yanks were
afraid to let me go, liceausc they bad to ac
count for me in some way.
"Ho I just stayed on and laughed at them.
They had to stay with me, and every day that
passed they came nearer to the exploding
point. The War Department at Washington
said I wasn’t there, and the men that stayed
on nt Point Lookout to guard me knew I was
there, I have never failed to lie amused at the
situation.
“The story of how it happened is pretty long,
but pretty good.
"There had been as merry a ride across Mary
land as you ever suw. A command under Gen
eral Bradley T. Johnson, of Maryland, had
Agricultural College, only eight miles from
Washington city.
"A little farther on our Lieutenant Kmack
came to ills home, under tiie guns of Fort Lin
coln, which was full of Northern soldiers. It
was then dark, and although the sentry on the
parapet was clearly seen by us a slio»t distance
away our entire command went through
Emaok's back yard, and cut across the couutry
to Rockville. It was just these daring ex
ploits that put a spice in the raid of ours.
“Very soon we were given to understand that
cavalry from Washington was close on our trail,
and after a tussle with them in tiie streets of
Rockville, we wanted to go home. It was a
long way off. We already had lieen In the
saddle several days and nights, and there was
no way for us to get on our own ground short
of Cumberland, as the line of tiie Potomac was
strongly guarded its entire length.
“Ho ltekety-split on we went, hedged on our
left by the Potomac River and tiie canal and a
string of troops and defenses. We were unable
to stop even to eat. and rude on day and night,
dotting in our saddles, eating lierries, dead tired
and hungry.
“We liuaily got to the neighborhood of Glenn
Colonel Thomas Peters, from a wartime picture and as he appears to-day.
Springs Station on the B. and O. Railroad, and
early In the morning were making for a bridge
over tiie canal, having breakfasted on our
usual meal of blackberries. To our amazement
and alarm, we saw that the lirtdge was guarded
by cavalry, but there was no time for consid
eration. We dashed at them and crossed the
command over the bridge, only to find the
Potomac to cross, and a little beyond the rail
road an armored train with GO men from Cum
berland.
“The general quickly ordered our gun into
position and Sergeant McAlwee sighted it so
splendidly that we had the gratification of see
ing the engine’s boiler explode. The men left the
train in a pile, running like ants, and went into
a nearby blockhouse. While they were still
frightened out of their wits we sent it flag of
truce and demanded their surrender, and they
tumbled, to our great delight.
“We paroled them and hurried on toward
Moorefleld, in what is now West Virginia. There
we went into camp, and five minutes later we
were dead men, fast asleep. Pickets were put
out, but they were in no better shape than the
command, and before day Custer swooped down
and captured the entire body witli tiie excep
tion of the artillery and Gilmer. They had gone
to the other side of a nearby river.
“I remember that I was sleeping away in a
farmhouse, when a woman ran into my room,
yelling ‘Yankees, Yankees, Yankees.’ Tip 1
jumped and ran downstairs to tiie road. My
horse was hitched in a grove across from the
house, and 1 went for him.
"It was such a big horse and I was so small
that 1 always had trouble in getting on his
back, even with no Yankees around. This time
it seemed that I could no more mount hint than
climb the side of n house. As I was jumping
and squirming, along came a Yank, firing at
me ns he came. Every time he fired the big
horse jumped, and I would lie lifted from the
ground by the bridle. Then the Yank got to me.
“ ‘All right, little Reb,’ he said, ‘I guess you’d
better come along.’
“For a while I was •seared. I had in my
pockets a record of all the devilment we had
done, it being m.v job to keep an account of our
raid. But on the way I got out the sheets of pa
per, kept some myself, gave some to the other
boys, aitjj we chewed them up.
“They took us first to Wheeling, and then to
Carol) Chase, and we filled tip Barracks 14.
This was in August, 1864. Time would fail to
toil alsiut our prison life.
“There were 12,000 men in the bullpen, und
the principal lines of thought were to get
something to eat, and to tunnel under the
parapet to get out. As I was a small man, I
had experiences as a hurrower.
“Finally there came a day when I was re
leased for parole outside tiie pen, to lie asso
ciated with Colonel Willis JIawkins, the poet,
who had been captured while commanding
scouts, guides und couriers lit Wheeler’s com
mand.
“The colonel looked after Prison One, the of
ficers' quarters, and lie also visited the hospital.
Prison Two was ’Abraham’s Bosom,’ where men
were placed when they proved false to the
South and took the oath of allegiance.
They had the fat of the laud.
“Prison Three was assigned to me, and I had
to make rounds of the 20 barracks to see to the
needs of the men. It ntay be well to state that
our duties were liased on an action by which
the T'nited States Government allowed the
Confederate Government to send cotton to New
York, where General Beale, C. S. A,,, sold it
xml bought shoes and clothing and blankets
for our men in Northern prisons.
“Then there came a day early in 1805 when
the Yankees finally consented to take their men
from Andersonville and elsewhere in exchange
for our men. And thus it came to pass that we
scut thousands from Camp Chase.
"Now, then, you will set- how I got lost In
the shuffle. One day when 1 was checking up
prisoners who were going South for exchange
I decided that I would go along, too. I told the
general commanding the prison, and he said it
would tie all right. And so I went out with
the squad for exchange. Now, then, I was
not listed for exchange—-I hud been paroled.
“On the truin which took us from Columbus,
Obio, I met Colonel John B. Oastleman, of
I.puisville, and several other officers, and by
ihe time we got to Baltimore and were placed
on the steamer to go around to Richmond we
were all chummy.
“As we steamed down the Chesapeake and
were opposite Point Lookout a lug came out
to meet us, and we were disembarked to tiie
Point. Tiie men went to Cracker Box Row. and
our party went to Hammond Hospital, where
we found a mess. Here we sojourned, laid very
close when the news of Lincoln's assassination
came, and our hearts were broken when we
heard that the end bad come witli Lee’s sur
render. Forthwith the exchange began again,
and every day parties were called by name, as
they were ordered from Washington to lie sent
’to Richmond and other places.
"Filially I was left alone, for I had floen
lost in the shuffle, although I didn’t know- it
then.
“Finding Unit I was the only- prisoner, and
that there seemed no disposition to let me out,
1 began to question the Yanks. A puzzle de
veloped, as they tiad no record of me. You
see, I had just come along of my own accord.
The Yanks at the Point grew eager to get
away, but I was there, and they had to stay
with me.
••They asked Washington what to do with me,
but the department wrote back:
‘“No such man. He escaped from Camp
Chase prison.’
“But I was there, and the Yank in charge at
the Point fumed and fretted. He wanted to get
home.
“‘Look here, little Reb,’ he told me, ‘this 1
can’t go on. You've got to take the oath of al
legiance, and we’ll all go home.'
“I laughed at him. I was enjoying myself.
“Weeks passed and still nothing happened.
One day he came to me, red hot.
‘“You’ve got it to do, little Reb.’ he said.
'The war’s over and we want to go home.'
"I looked at him for a while.
"‘Well,’ I said, ‘trot it along. Get a nice!
young eagle, and pull its pin feathers, and
make it as pleasant as possible. It’ll be a hard
lilt to swallow at that, but I’ll make a go of it.’
“It was late in the summer then, and I was
beginning to get as eager to leave as were the
Yanks. I went back to my home in Baltimore
und early In I860 went to make my home in
Selma, Ala., where I married. I came to At-
lanta to live in 1870.”
Colonel Peters leaned farther back in his
chair and laughed. He can always laugh, he
said, when he thinks of Point Lookout and his
experience there.
It was only one of a number of experiences
that this very interesting Atlanta man has
had in his day. With his wonderful memory,
lie bus stores of anecdotes und renlly valuable
reminiscences to relate that well warrant the
desire of his friends that he write his auto
biography. For one thing, as a boy he lived in
the house with Betsy Patterson Bonaparte, the
famous Baltimore woman who married Jerome
Bonaparte. He was a boy in his teens when
lie knew her, and she was an old woman. She
lived with his father’s sisters, who were keeping
a boarding house, but they and tiie rnadame
bad been schoolmates at Madame Baconet’s iu
earlier days. II. B. Toy, of Atlanta, lived in
tiie same house in 1859-1860.
After the manner of boys, Colonel Peters
said, lie lacked reverence and in consequence
there was little love iost between him and the
eroehety old Madame Bonuparte. He tells of
one tiling Madame Bonaparte did, however,
which lie thinks should of itself place her high
iu history. Alone and unaided, she weut to
France, and In the courts proved tiie legiti
macy of her son and secured cancellation of a
decree which had been made to the contrary.
Other interesting reminiscences are those
concerning the days of the United States Sen
ate in (lie early fifties. Colonel Peters was em
ployed then ns a page in the Senate.
“I knew General Lewis Cass and Judge Fes
senden, of Maine, and Millard Fillmore, and
was personally known to Slidell, of Louisiana;
Bright, of Indiana; Hamlin, of Maine; Clayton,
of Delaware; Stephen A. Douglas, Dodge, of
Iowa; Dodge, of Wisconsin, for all of whom [
franked- that is, affixed an imitation of their
signatures to matter for mailing. To-day I can
recall the identical lines of their signatures.
"And President Polk. Years liefore that
time iu tiie Senate I had accosted the President
as he rode on his high horse, und when ho
spoke to me I asked him to give my father a
place iu Government employ.
“in recent years I visited the Capitol and
found Senator Bacon, of Georgia, occupying tiie
old Committee on Commerce room which was
Hamlin’s in the old days. Senator Tillman was
in Douglas’ room, the Committee on Territories.
Bright’s oommlttee room, Roads and Canals,
with Its circular window, is next south of
Douglas’, Clayton’s, Postoffices and Post Roads,
was opposite tiie Commerce Committee room,
and at tiie head of the circular stairs at the
south end of the hall was the room used by
the Dodges, father and son.
“I knew them all. It is all plain to me to
day, and it is a great enjoyment to have a
memory to recall tiie things that I have seen.
"Mental tranquillity, I should say, is the se
cret. It is the secret of youth. I’ouce DeLeon
lived too strenuously to find his fountain of
eternal power and freshness.”
How a Georgian Is Teaching New Yorkers to Spoon
T IIE Romeos and the Juliets, the Rosa
linds and Orlandos, the Jacks and Jills,
the lovers all of New York town, are finding
their ways east into pleasant places with the
advent of progressive, rational Reverend John
R. Gunn, formerly of Atlanta, who went to the
metropolis as pastor of the North Baptist
Church.
Almost since time was, maidens of New
York have rebelled at entertaining their beaux
in crowded hall bedrooms, where siouchy old
women and dirty children and loafing, un-
fchuved men sat with them. Hince time they
have been driven to the parks and to the
Coney Island boats, to hold hands and kiss in
public, to exchange rapturous embraces before
the eyes of strange men and women, to seek
the picture shows for darkness. Love was
forced to thrive under difficulties.
Enter then the Rev. John K. Gunn, the sober-
minded, sympathetic young Georgia clergyman.
IIow he made his church parlor a social cen
ter, inviting young men and women to conn*
and spoon to their hearts’ content, to make
love and matches, to plan for the future and
to work out their lives together, sanely and
sweetly to woo and to love, under discreet
chaperonage-—all that is an old story.
But how New York has taken to the idea,
lauding it as a great move toward public
rigiiteousues.5 and sanity, greeting it with all se
riousness and without maudlin ridicule, is the
sequel to the original stories. The Rev. John
It. Gunn lias become a national celebrity, and
his church parlors, commonly known as the
Spooning Parlors, are well patronized by sin
cere young men and women.
For instance—a young woman there was
who entered the church the other day. She
had heard of the wonders of the new institu
tion, and of her own accord had begged an
hour’s leave from the Sixth avenue department
store iu which she worked.
The girl was wistful, because she was loved,
and there was only the tiny hall bedroom that
she could call her home, and only the crowded
parks and the sordid steamboat decks iu which
to meet her lover.
“I ain’t got a home,” she told the tall, long
haired clergyman who met her ns she entered
the church. “I got a fourth floor back in
Twenty-third street. If that sounds like home
you ought to try it for a while. There’s noth
ing like three feet by six of floor space and a
Twenty-third street landlady to make you dip
py over life in the great city. Why, when I
let down tuy folding bed I have to jump up
Into the air to get into it. There’s no floor
left to stand on. As for comp’ny—well, there’s
the tire eseai>e. .
“And where can 1 take .Tim? Do you think
I went to set him down among all those oth
er women on the front stoop V Do you think we
want to set every night with the bums on the
park benches? It’s no fun walkin’ to Central
Park after bein’ on your feet all day In the
store. And car fare comes out of the lunch
money.”
Mr. Gunn, with a circling gesture that was
worlds full of hospitality and sympathy, invited
her to the ‘‘Spooning Parlor.”
“But Jim’s a Catholic,” she said in doubt.
“Can I bring him here?”
“Bring a dozen Jims here,” assured the tali
young Southerner. “This is for everybody who
is sincere. Don’t you know why this was es
tablished? Listen:
“We need a revival of the old ideas of love,
marriage, home, and children. That is why 1
am speaking from my pulpit on such subjects
as ‘How to Get a Husband and Keep Him,’ and
‘How to Get a Wife and Keep Her.’ I believe
that my plan to bring honorable young men and
equally sincere young women together that
matrimony may result is workable. Can there
be any objection to it?”
And so New York lias taken hold. Many
come to the “Spooning Parlor,” where Mrs.
Gunn, as sympathetic as her husband, greets
them. It is ill a church parlor, in spite of
the metamorphiosis of purpose. It lias an
ancient grand piano at one end, whose keys
have tinkled out only the hymns of Baptist
faith up to this day, whose wails are still hung
with the photographs of the Baptist pioneers
who founded the church in 1810. But there
are plenty of big windows to let in Mr for even
ing gatherings, and there is a great deal of
space. Iu a small hack room there is a compe
tent gas range fo rhte spooners to experiment
on, cooking anything from fudge to complex a
la cartes.
And there are plans to make it even cozier.
The heavy tapestries, suggestive of gloom, will
I#* replaced by softer, lighter curtains, of the
material known as dimity. The hymn books
will he shelved on spooning night, and bright
er, lighter melodies will be substituted. The
staid, stiff portraits of the old church fathers,
calculated to spread terror and reserve in trio
minds of young lovers, will be put in the base
ment, and something more cheerfully decorative
will l>e put in their stead. And—
Mr. Gunn unfolds his latest, greatest plan
with a whisper—
There is an old colonial mansion somewhere
on the Hudson River, with green trimmings
against its clean white. It is big and bright
and cheerful. And it has been secured by this
remarkable young clergyman as a place to
which the lovers, under chaperonage. may go
for the Sunday together—out into the green,
broad fields, and the glad outdoors, much as
they would do in the more fortunate spheres
of smaller towns.
New York has welcomed the idea, and the
young Georgian’s fame is broadcast.