March 14th, 1866.\u2014Riding horse-back with My Soldier this afternoon I told him the incident at Goodwood and how gallantly Mr. Coolidge came to the rescue. I told him I had heard Mr. Coolidge was related to him and if that was so I wanted to know why he did not make friends with him? He looked very serious and I was beginning to fear I had hurt him in some unknown way.<\/p>\n
At last he spoke, “I have never mentioned my cousin, Sidney Coolidge to you; he came to Florida to visit our family prior to the war. I, a school boy, just at the age to give the warmest admiration to a man of charm and ability such as he was. I loved my cousin Sidney and looked forward to the visit, which he had promised us at some future time.<\/p>\n
“The war came on and during the whole four years of war, I was in the thickest of the fighting. After Gettysburg I was promoted and assigned to the Army of the West. One day I was sent to carry a dispatch for my general. Crossing the field of Chickamauga, I was hit by a bullet; (the only time in all the years) it ploughed its way through hat and hair scorching as it went. I was stunned but soon recovered, delivered the dispatch and turned to go. An officer who knew me, laid his hand on my arm and said:<\/p>\n
” ‘Your cousin, Colonel Coolidge, lies dead in that tent, don’t you want to go and look at him?’<\/p>\n
“I was still faint from the shock of the bullet and I turned quickly away that he might not see my horror and distress. I did not see him, I could not bear it, but always, I have thanked a kind Providence that on this day<\/em> I had not fired a single shot but had been on courier duty all day.<\/p>\n “Now, this young lieutenant you like so much, is probably a relative, indeed I am sure he is, but this is the way I feel about it; if the Confederates had been the victorious army and I had been occupying the conquered country, if, in fact, our positions could be reversed, I should look him up, claim the tie of blood and proffer the hand of friendship. As things stand, he is the conqueror, I am the conquered and if any advances are made they must come from him.”<\/p>\n “I am sorry,” I said when he closed. “Even if he does wear the blue, he is a kinsman worth claiming and I am sure you two would be congenial.” With that the subject was dropped, never to be resumed. He is a man of deep feeling, quiet and reticent, sincere and truthful but too proud to expose himself to a possible slight. The Southern Confederacy had no braver soldier than he. My brave Soldier in Gray!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" March 14th, 1866.\u2014Riding horse-back with My Soldier this afternoon I told him the incident at Goodwood and how gallantly Mr. Coolidge came to the rescue. I told him I had heard Mr. Coolidge was related to him and if that was so I wanted to know why he did not make friends with him? He […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21,"featured_media":93077,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-32941","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-through-some-eventful-years"},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.cw-chronicles.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/Susa-Bradford-Eppes.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cw-chronicles.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32941","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cw-chronicles.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cw-chronicles.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cw-chronicles.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/21"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cw-chronicles.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32941"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.cw-chronicles.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32941\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cw-chronicles.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/93077"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cw-chronicles.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32941"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cw-chronicles.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32941"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cw-chronicles.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32941"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}