Our son J. arrived last night with quite a party, his health
greatly suffering from over-work in Richmond during these exciting times. One
of the party told me an anecdote of General J. E. B. Stuart, which pleased me
greatly. Mrs. S. was in the cars, and near her sat a youth, in all the pride of
his first Confederate uniform, who had attended General S. during his late raid
as one of his guides through his native county of Hanover. At one of the water
stations he was interesting the passengers by an animated account of their
hair-breadth escapes by flood and field, and concluded by saying, “In all the
tight places we got into, I never heard the General swear an oath, and I never
saw him drink a drop.” Mrs. S. was an amused auditor of the excited narrative,
and after the cars were in motion she leaned forward, introduced herself to the
boy, and asked him if he knew the reason why General S. never swears nor
drinks; adding, “It is because he is a Christian and loves God, and nothing
will induce him to do what he thinks wrong, and I want you and all his soldiers
to follow his example.”
SOURCE: Judith W. McGuire, Diary of a Southern
Refugee, During the War, p. 151
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