Thursday, April 12, 2012

1862 April 13 Lewisburg, Va.

[from the diary of future University of Virginia professor Milton W. Humphreys, of King's Artillery as copied and annotated by him in 1893]

Sunday 13 I remained in barracks trying to get my throat cured; but in vain
could scarcely utter a word.--About this time I met with my esteemed former old
guardian friend, Dr. James M. Brown,--the first time since I left Kanaw.
in the summer of 1860. I found him at the Rev. J. C. Barr's in Lewis-
burg. He had come through the enemy's lines from Charleston to see his son
James and daughter Mary, who were staying at his son John's at Frankford,
ten miles from Lewisburg. A few minutes after I met him, he started towards camp
"Floyd," saying he would see me on the coming Sunday, when he expected to ad-
minister the Lord's Supper in the Presbyterian Church in Lewisburg. He advised
me to go into the hospital, saying he wanted to hear my voice, clear and distinct,
when he saw me next. Alas! he saw me no more. the news came that his
daughter Mary Roberta Lavinia was very low with typhoid [typhus?] fever, in the same house at Frankford in which his brother Samuel,--an estimable and
talented young preacher,--had died with the same terrible disease a few
years before [1857]. The pious old saint hastened with all the anxiety and
fears
of an affectionate father to the deathbed of his beloved daughter, gut to see her
breathe her last breath. His son, James Moore B who had been preparing
for the ministry, was soon carried off by the same disease in the same
house. Overwhelmed with grief, Dr. Brown was suddenly stricken by
the same disease, and soon passed away. The news of these successive
deaths came to me like the news of the death of sister, brother, father;
for such they had been to me.--|


MSS 1578

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