property, the pains and penalties of internecine war, little understood by any but eyewitnesses and participants, I recall the beautiful words of Washington Irving: "There is a voice from the tomb which is sweeter than any song. There are thoughts of the dead to which we turn even from the charms of the living, and from the peaceful bosom of the grave come none but fond regrets and tender recollections." I have said nothing of casualties in this last effort on the firing line, for it was midnight when the order was given "to spike guns and disband," and no investigation was made. Little did I dream, when I heard the sound of that bugle in the still hour of the night, that it was anything more serious in its consequences than the curfew of the parting day; but I soon realized that it was the knell of a dying cause. It was the final appeal to arms and the last judgment. Big battles and events are told and retold in story and song, while the little ones, though often significant and important in the construction of a complete narrative, are either not mentioned or are treated so lightly as to discredit the truth of history. The first night after the Columbus engagement I reached the home of Mr. Jere Bennett; and though just three miles from my own home, I was so exhausted that I wanted to borrow a horse in order to get home that night. Mr. Bennett was in hiding with his mules, and I was guided by a negro woman, Amy, to his hiding place. He ordered some fried eggs and bacon cooked for me. I had known his family from my earliest childhood. He would not let me go farther that night because Wilson's cavalrymen were still raiding the country for provisions and were not particular to exclude from capture anybody wearing a Confederate uniform even at that date. I spent the night with him in the woods, and the next morning early I resumed my homeward tramp over the familiar ground. I reached home the second day. I came through the woods and the fields and by the "back road" from the house to the farm. It was noon, and the negroes, among whom was Austin, had just started to the field; they were the first to greet me. I was wearing a blue-gray military cap, and on this account they mistook my identity and called out: "Austin has captured a Yankee!" However, I was soon recognized and surrounded by black and white, and so I made my way to the house. My brother, James B. Grant, who had been in the service four months in Capt. R. H. Bellamy's battery, of Waddell' Battalion, arrived home from near Macon, Ga., the second day after my arrival. Though all fighting had ceased, Wilson's Cavalry in squads and companies was still raiding the homes of the people. To save the live stock, our two younger brothers, Coffield and Whitaker, kept them in hiding in the back woods and swamps. This duty now devolved upon the soldier brothers. We slept in the woods for a few days an nights, and, thinking all danger over, we put the six mules an two horses in the lot at the house. One night we went to our little bed in the outhouse, the first time I had slept in house for a year. No sooner were we in bed than a negro boy, Walker, who worked and hunted with us, came hurriedly to the door of our room and said: "Marse Billy, the yard is full of Yankees!" We slipped on our breeches an got out quickly. The night was dark and the atmosphere full of gloom and excitement. Our father, feeble and white-haired, was forced by mother (to prevent capture) into the darkness in the rear of the houses, where we joined him; and we three, standing the in the outer darkness and talking in whispers. witnessed the last act - the appropriation of those necessities upon which with her own hands gave all the milk and butter of the dairy to the Union soldiers. The six mules were hitched to the big farm wagon, which was filled with all the hams and shoulders from the smokehouse, and the company left with their plunder for the camp, six or seven miles away. It was at the season when mules and provisions were essential to the making of the crop and when much delay would necessarily be disastrous to the success of it. It is needless to dwell upon the distress of my father, especially with a big family of his own and relatives, deprived of their homes by the war, dependent upon him, besides his obligation to the slaves, who were not responsible for existing conditions. The next morning at sunrise "Old Bill," all that was left of the carriage team from the necessities of the war, was seen standing at the front gate, demanding admission by repeated whinnies. He was too old for the hardships of the march, and yet with him and two mules borrowed from General Guerry, with twenty bushels of corn, the crop was saved; but we had no meat in the larder for the rest of the year, 1865. I can never forget the scene on the morning of April 23, 1865, when my father called his big family, white and black, around him and explained the situation; told the thirty or forty negroes that they were no longer slaves, that they were at liberty to leave at once if they wanted to, that he had no money, and that the mules, with most of the provisions, had been taken; that it was impossible for him to pay them wages that year, but that, if they wished to stay with him and help to make the crop, he would clothe, house, and feed them as well as he could. Only two left - one boy, Walker, and George, the carriage driver. The latter left his four children behind, and they were wards of our family until self-supporting. All of them followed my brothers and sisters to the West several years later. Two are dead, and two are still living in our midst. Time in its evolution finally brings peace even to those who have faced the trials, the bitter passions, the hardships and privations of sectional strife. Life in its manifold aspects imposes upon all sacred obligations which as good citizens we would cheerfully discharge in behalf of national unity, interest, and patriotism; and in this spirit we would be true and loyal- to the virtues and best traditions of our native section. In 1867, with the assistance of an uncle, the late judge James Grant, a native of North Carolina but a resident of Davenport, la., since 1835, I left Alabama for Enfield, N. C., where I studied medicine with an old uncle, Dr. M. C. Whitaker. From there I went to Jefferson Medical College, Phila-delphia, and later to Bellevue and Long Island Colleges, New York. In obedience to the wishes of my benefactor and the financial exigencies of the situation, I came West after grad-uation. In i87o I met at Dakota City, Nebr., Capt. W. C. ,NfcBeth, a native of Kentucky, who had been an officer in Wilson's command and was in the battle herein described. He asked the name of the battery on the hill to the right of our line. I told him that it was one section of Clanton's Battery and that I was there. He remarked: "You did some good shooting and killed and wounded about sixty of our men." We became good friends and roomed together for several months. Though we had been opposed in 1865, it was a pleasure to meet a courteous gentleman and good citizen who could, when the contest of civil strife was settled. put aside its passions and prejudices for the love and peace of a united country.