Biographical Newspaper clippings, 1861-1930, Vol. 1

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jEAU CLAIRE, WISCONSIN. OCTOBER 18, i927.
LocalJ/eteran Who Helped To^apture^ Jefferson Davis Sixty- Two^earsAgo Recalls Dramatic Climax of Civil War
j Memories of the "Glorious Six ties" when the Blue and the Gray 'lattled BO gallantly, and especially that last dramatic climax ot the Civil war—the capture of Jefferson Davis—were vividly brought to mind last Tuesday, October 11, by the ninetieth birthday of an Eau Claire man who aided In the fam¬ ous capture. Corporal Ben N^_Cas- Ugj Company C, First WigconSn Cavalry.   Hale     and  hearty     still,
! blessed with an excellent memory and  the gift    of lucid    narrative,
I Corporal Castle recalls with pride the achievements of the famous old First Cavalry that in the tnree and
; a half years of its existence tooK part in more engagements than any other 'Wisoongin organization and lost almost 16 per cent of Its men by deaths, and wrote its final glorious chapter that historic May morning down in Georgia when the fleeing head of the doomed Confed¬ eracy was placed under arrest.
It was Indeed an eventful month that had  preceded  this fitting  cli-
CORPORAL  BEN  CASTLE
max  to   the   Rebellion      sixty-two years ago;  a month a^ fruitful of^ historic moments as any in our his-"! Itory. General Lee had surrendered; I his Army of Northern Virginia to! 'Grant on April 9,  18 65.  Presldentj Lincoln had been assassinated five I days later, and the half-mad actor : who  had flred the fatal shot had ¦ been run down and phot In Virginia on the 2 6th of the month. On the j same   day   General   "Joe"   Johnou I had surrendered  to   General  Sher- ' man, and Dick Taylor had capitul¬ ated  on May 4,
Bavls Clings To Hope The valor and steel that had uphold the Lost Cause for four years had melted away, and now there remained only an empty name and that tall, army-hred Kentuckian executive to represent the Confederate States of America. And while his "government" hur¬ ried southward and westward away from Richmond, while one by one the members of his cabinet and ; official staff dropped away, while j the hoofbeats of Union cavalry 1 echoed on every nearby road, Jef- 1 ferson Davis still clungto the frag- •¦ ments o'f his ghartargd dreams, still vlsioned - fih* -daV when" beyond the M.lsBissipii" the" S"tars* ' and Bars v/ould again wave above an army of fi.ghtiug men desp'te the present grim evidences of a world well lost. So he fled, across Virginia, across the Carolinas, across Georgia; like Napoleon after Wa- 1 terloo, "the gigantic sleep-walker of that vanished dream."
After the defeat of Hood by Thomas at Nashville, the Union ~ Cavalry under General James H. Wilson pursued the defeated Con¬ federate Into Mississippi and then turned south on his famoup raid through Alabama and Georgia which resulted In the rout of Gen¬ eral Forrest and the capture of Montgomery and Selma, Ala., and Columbus, West Point and Macon, Ga.
First Took Oonsplcnous Post The First Wisconsin cavalry took a conspicuous part In this the most successful cavalry raid of the war and as part of the Second Brigade, Firs^pivlslon, Cavalry corps, starU