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 Dr. S. C. Gleaves' Promise to a Mother

  • » Date: 1862
  • » Subject: Dr. S. C. Gleaves' Promise to a Mother
  • » Written By: Anna Gleaves Rich
  • » Addressed To: unknown
  • » File # 8402

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Dr. Samuel Crockett Gleaves, of Wytheville, VA, served as Surgeon for the entire regiment of Floyd's Cavalry, of Virginia, with rank of Major, all through the War Between the States. During the last years of the War, as Floyd's Cavalry was riding through the State of Virginia, a 15 year old boy ran out from his home, and begged permission to join the Confederate Army. They needed men so badly by that time that they "robbed the cradle and the grave" to fill their depleted ranks. The boy was tall and strong and could furnish his own horse for service. However his mother cried piteously, saying her husband and two older sons had been killed in battles and this was the only member of her family left to her and she could not give him up! The boy insisted on going, and was so badly needed, that he was accepted. To comfort the weeping mother Dr. S. C. Gleaves promised to be personally responsible for him and look after him for her. A few weeks later during battle, a courier brought a message to Dr. Gleaves that the boy had been mortally wounded, was dying, and begging to see Dr. Gleaves, to carry a message to his mother. Dr. Gleaves was stationed on one high hill, and the wounded boy was on another high hill, opposite him with a meadow between them, that was being raked with a hail of bullets, falling thickly. Dr. Gleaves' companions urged him not to go, as if boy was dying, he could not save him, and his own life was too valuable to his regiment as its surgeon, to lose it, when it would accomplish nothing. But Dr. Gleaves said he had promised the boy's mother, and he had never failed to keep his word in his life, so he must go. He rode a large, beautiful white horse, all through the war. The gallant doctor rode down one hill, across the meadow, and up the second hill with bullets falling thickly around him, all the way. When he reached the top of the second hill, both Armies cheered him! The boy died but was comforted by seeing his friend and sending a message to his mother. The blood of Dr. S. C. Gleaves is flowing in the veins of Alice Sampselle [Hix] at this day.

Story written by Anna Gleaves Rich when her grand-daughter, Alice S. Hix, asked for Civil War family stories for a grade school class assignment.

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