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AT 70 YEARS A CADET.Confederate Veteran Drills with Boysof a Southern College.It in not often that a man 70 yearn ofagre goes to school. It in more rare yetto And one enlisted as a cadet, drillingan hour each day. and taking a livelyinterest In his military duties.The latter, however, is not strangewhen the fact In remembered that thissame cadet, William Standifer of Hindscounty, Mississippi, in n veteran of * e Civil war, wan a gallant soldier in theconfederate army, and beam scars toattest hln bravery In many an engage* Ment during four long years.Now, In the sunset of his life, he again wears the confederate gray, and stops an lightly forward to the stirring music of Dixie” as any lti-year-okl .cadet In the battalion of 400 at the Agricultural and Mechanical college ofMississippi at StarkviHc.WILLIAM STANniFr.lt.Cadet Htnudtfcr's fellow-studenttthink a great deal of him. lie in intensely interested In the stock raising department of the college and the greenhouses, and in as keen to learnnew methods of agriculture and tocatch on to every modern tyim there exemplified, an a man could possibly be.* * I am the oldest child of a mother left widow with ‘tix small children, and so 1 had no opportunity for schoolingwhen 1 was a youngster./’ sayn MrHtandlfer.When the war came on, I enlisted in the •Raymond FenctblM,' a company raised in Hinds county, Miss, and we were assigned to the uth Mississippiinfantry, Griffith’s brigade, army of northern Virginia. We were in sup* port at Williamsburg. Va, in the two cays* light at Bevcn Hines, and in the seven davs’ fight around Richmond, Va.*'At the battle of Gaines Mills my new gray coat that my mother spun and wove for me was so badly torn by shot that it was beyond patchingi one ball was caught in the roil of my blanket, one ball lodged in the buckle of my cartridge belt, and one passed through the rolled rim and crown of a thick wool hat. and mashed as flat as a half-dollar against my head. It knocked me insensible, but c4d not break the skin.I had a bullet cut out of my right leg that had wrapped itself around thefibula.’ l was in the battle of Chancellors-vllh* and was shot through the peck in the battle of the Wilderness. Even now my neck Is so stiff that I have to turn around to look behind me. I was also In the first buttle of Fredericksburgand at Harpers ferry, and then I spent four months in the trenches around Richmond and Petersburg.“I was in other lights and skirmishes, and can hear nothing with my left ear on account of a shell exploding pretty close to my head. I suffered no other injury except the loss of hearing, andmy ear bled some.After the war I married and settled down In Hinds county. My first wife did not live long, and I married again and had several children by this marriage. My second wife died and my third wife was a widow. We had three children, making 10 In all that 1 was father to. At the present time I have about 25 grandchildren.Just as wife and I got the d«fbts paid off and the many children some books and clothes, my wife was paralyzed on her entire right side for IS years. During this time all the children grew up and started out to do for themselves, except my baby boy, now 22 years ofage. 1 exhausted my resources to builda barn, and raised only forage crops, in my old age. I could not do mu oh except raise stock, regular farm work being too hard for me.On Dec 22, 1903, my barn was burned, an 1 was a total loss. My neighbors were wonderfully kind, and gave mo corn and money to help me out. Then in four months my wire died, and my balnr hoy went away and left me alone.I applied to be one of a northern emigration colony to locate in southeastGeorgia, and I thought if I must start life over again I would go to the Agricultural and Mechanical college and get some dots on stock, improved farm implements. learn the use of a separator, and the best methods of trucking.I never thought Mississippi could produce such studious, industrious, courteous and kind young fellows. They are kind to each other, respectful to the aged and women, with never a sneer at the boy ail covered with cotton seed meal from feeding the cows, or covered with smut from cleaning the flues to a boiler or dirty from shoeing a horse or shoveling coal.If some Christian lady would like a man around, drop me a letter and we will talk the matter over.—Chicago Tribune.
Newspaper Details
Boston Sunday Globe
Boston, Massachusetts, US
Sun, Apr 02, 1905
Page 67
Full Page
Clipped by
Shelly L.
VA, USA 08 Mar 2020
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