October 8, 1862, Montgomery Weekly Advertiser
“Personne,” the correspondent of the Charleston Courier, recording some incidents of the late battles on Manassas Plains, mentions the following of an Alabama boy:
It is related of a soldier belonging to the Eighth Alabama Regiment, that he found a Yankee in the woods, that being separated from his regiment he did not know what to do with him. While soliloquizing, the officer who gave me the incident rode by, and his advice being asked, he told the soldier he had better let the prisoner go. “Well” said the Alabamian, “I reckon I will; but look here, Yankee, you can’t leave till you’ve given me some of them good clothes. Strip! I want your boots and breeches.” The Yankee protested against any such indignity, and appealed to the officer to protect him. The Alabamian also plead his cause. “Here’s this fellow,” said he, “come down here a robbing of our people, and he’s stayed so long it’s no mor’n right he should pay for his board. I don’t want him to go round in his bar legs any mor’n he wants to; and I mean to give him my old clothes.” “A fair exchange is no robbery,” replied the officer, “and as you have no shoes and a mighty poor pair of pants, I reckon you had better help yourself.” “Now Yankee, you hear what the ‘boss’ says, do yer; off with your traps and let’s trade.” The last thing my friend saw as he rode away, was the two worthies in their “bar legs,” stripping for an exchange.