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Ft. Smith Ark.
Feb. 13, 1909
My Dear Madam,
I was greatly surprised, delighted, and honored by the receipt of your kind note. I
remember with great admiration your distinguished and much beloved husband, with
whom of course, as a mere lad and a Private soldier, I had no personal acquaintance! He
commanded our Brigade for a time. I can see him now, after 40 years, as he walked
about the battlefield of Chickamauga, after the first brilliant charge on the morning of the
second day had been followed by a second, equally as brave but unsuccessful on
Snodgrass Hill, under fire but as cool and deliberate as if no shot or shell were passing
about us. I followed the flag of the old 9th Miss. Regt. from Shiloh to the end, never
missing a single battle in which it was engaged, tho' wounded at Munfordville, KY &
Jonesboro, Geo. I was with it at Franklin, Tenn. when Gen. S.D. Lee said, in an article
published in the June no. of the Veteran for 1908, he witnessed the night charge of Gen.
Edward Johnson's Division, to which my Brigade belonged, and that it was the most
"gallant feat of arms" he saw during the whole war. It was a superb Brigade, but no
better than its sister, first commanded by that splendid gentleman and gallant soldier Gen.
E.C. Walthall, these two commands were brigaded together the whole war. They had
absolute confidence in each other and in their commanders. I wish I might have known
personally your gallant husband. Any woman might well be proud of such a husband. I
hope my dear madam Providence has been kind and good to you, and that the past still
has its sweet and tender memories. The present its comfort & joy & that the future is full
of hope and promise.
To Mrs. Patton Anderson
Palatka, Fla.
John H. Rogers
Transcribed by Christopher A. Baker, University of Florida, 2008.
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