The West Family Hosts a Ball for Neighbors and Confederate Officers, 1864

[The State (Columbia, South Carolina), April 12, 1914:]

[Themes: Civil War—civilian roles, medical aspects, memory and commemoration, Battle of Trevilians; social/group/neighborhood identity and action]

BROOKS RECEIVES

RELIC OF THE WAR

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Veteran Values an Old Pistol Highly

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BATTLE AT TREVILLIAN

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Trophy of Greatest Cavalry Fight

in History—Presented by

Widow of Hero.

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Gen. U. R. Brooks was presented last week with a relic which he values highly and purposes [sic] handing on to his children—a Colt’s navy revolve, cap and ball, six-shot model,which doubtless had deadly employment in the War Between the Sections but never the less remains in usable condition. The weapon is accompanied with belt and holster. Its story Gen. Brooks related yesterday as follows:

“The battle of Trevillian Station, the greatest cavalry engagement in history, was fought June 11 and 12,1864. On the evening of June 10, Dr.West of Louisa county, Virginia, had as his guests the young officers attached to the staffs of Gens. Hampton and Butler. The young women of the household had invited to a ball that night their friends of the county.

“Among the girls was a beautiful, black-eyed lassie of 11 years. Among the officers a was a handsome young man belonging to the First North Carolina cavalry. He had been one of Stuart’s couriers up to the time of that brilliant general’s death. The lass of 11 and the young North Carolinian met at the ball on the evening before Trevillian and the next day the officer picked up from the battlefield this revolver.

“After the surrender the young North Carolinian went back to Virginia and sought out the lassie of ‘64, grown then to beautiful womanhood. He offered his hand and heart, was accepted, and they were married. Today the same lady, now widowed, brought tome the pistol from Trevillian battlefield, with this remark: “You and I are perhaps the only persons living in Columbia who heard the guns at Trevillian Station, where Hampton and his brave comrade Butler drove Sheridan back behind Grant’s army. She gave the revolver to me with the request that it be given to my children and their children, as a trophy of the greatest cavalry fight in history.”