Captain Vance, of the Second, with a friend, Myer Moses, had captured a horse, and they were making their way through the thickets, Moses in front, with Vance in rear, the darkness almost of midnight on them.  They came upon a squad of Federal pickets.  They saw their plight in a moment, but Moses was keen-witted and sharp-tongued, and pretended that he was a Yankee, and demanded their surrender.  When told that they were Federals, he seemed overjoyed, and urged them to “come on and let’s catch all those d——­n Rebels.”  But when they asked him a few questions he gave himself away.  He was asked: 

“What command do you belong to?”

“Eighty-seventh New York,” Moses answered, without hesitation.

“What brigade?” “What division?” etc.  “We have no such commands in this army.  Dismount, you are our prisoners.”

But Captain Vance was gone, for at the very outset of the parley he slid off behind and quietly made his escape.  In such emergencies it was no part of valor to “stand by your friend,” for in that case both were lost, while otherwise one was saved.

What was the cause of our panic, or who was to blame, none ever knew.  The blame was always laid at “somebody else’s” door.  However disastrous to our army and our cause was this stampede—­the many good men lost (killed and captured) in this senseless rout—­yet I must say in all candor, that no occasion throughout the war gave the men so much food for fun, ridicule, and badgering as this panic.  Not one man but what could not tell something amusing or ridiculous on his neighbor, and even on himself.  The scenes of that day were the “stock in trade” during the remainder of the war for laughter.  It looked so ridiculous, so foolish, so uncalled for to see twenty thousand men running wildly over each other, as it were, from their shadows, for there was nothing in our rear but a straggling line of Federals, which one good brigade could have put to rout.

Both Colonel Boykin and Lieutenant Colonel McMichael, of the Twentieth, were captured and never returned to the service, not being parolled until after the surrender.  The Twentieth was commanded by Major Leaphart until the close.

As Adjutant Pope never returned in consequence of his wounds.  I will give a few facts as to his life.  No officer in the army was parted with greater reluctance than Adjutant Pope.

* * * * *

ADJUTANT YOUNG JOHN POPE.

Y.J.  Pope was born in the town of Newberry, S.C., on the 10th of April, 1841.  Was the son of Thomas Herbert Pope and Harriett Neville Pope, his wife.  He was educated in the Male Academy, at Newberry, and spent six years at Furman University, Greenville, S.C., from which institution he graduated in August, 1860.  After studying law under his uncle, Chief Justice O’Neall, he entered the Confederate Army on April 13th, 1861, as First Sergeant in Company E, of Third