926

HISTORY OF TUB

observed in a preceding part of this work. Meanwhile, however, he had contemplated adding the battery, when completed, to the forces at Charleston, and telegraphed to General Beauregard to know if he desired more artillery, whereupon the following telegram was sent to Captain Lockwood : " The Confederate flag now floats over Fort Sumter," and that night of wild excitement ensued in Memphis which has been noted by others as a part of the histor}' of those times.

He proposed to the officers aforementioned that he would attach his battery to the Kentucky troops, now about to be organized on the Tennessee border, but remained some time in Louisville, assisting in transporting recruits and their effects to Camp Boone, and participating in those exciting scenes about the Nashville depot, where the Government detective, with a force at his command, was constantly on the alert to prevent what he was pleased to denominate " blockade-running," and would have prohibited the transportation of men and their baggage to the rendezvous on the border, could he have done so without arousing the fury and the vengeance of the friends of the South who gathered about the out-going train whenever men and baggage were to be shipped. He then returned to Greenville, Mississippi, and organized his battery under the following officers, whose commissions bore the dates written opposite their respective names, though their services began at a time even prior to the organization:

Edward P. Byrne, captain, July 13, 1861; Guignard Scott, first lieutenant, August 29, 1861; Thomas Hinds, first lieutenant, October 9, 1861; Bay less P. Shelby, second lieutenant, August 29, 1861 ; John Joyes, Jr., second lieutenant, October 11, 1861. Elias D. Lawrence, of Louisville, Kentucky, was the sergeant-major ; and Frank Peak, of Chicot Couuty, Arkansas, was first sergeant. Both of them were afterward promoted to be lieutenants of artillery.

Captain Byrne reported to Colonel Robert A. Johnson, then commanding at Camp Boone, early in August, and entered upon the necessary drill and other disciplinary measures to secure order