SOURCE: "His War Experience," in Thomas Nelson Page: A Memoir of a Virginia Gentleman, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1923, pp. 31-42.

Rosewell Page, Page's younger brother, tells of Page's Civil War experiences and their influence on his writing.

Young Page's first experience of war was in the spring of 1861, when he saw his father and Ralph, the son of his brother's black mammy, ride off to join the Confederate army, and a few days later saw his uncle William ride off with Nat upon the same errand. He saw Nat brought home demented after the considerate order of the master allowing him to ride on the caisson across the Potomac was countermanded by another officer, and the wading the stream brought on an illness which left the faithful man bereft of his reason. . . .

Deep and lasting was the impression made upon the boy, and from that time he became and...