ONE OF THE "BLOODS" CONVINCED, AND COL. MALLETT'S BATALLION VINDICATED The article on this page was published in the Weekly Standard, a Raleigh, North Carolina newspaper March 11, 1863 Issue. W. W. Holden, Editor. Transcribed by Myrtle Bridges February 15, 2003
"I'll tell the tale as it was told to me." Thomas Phelps, of Person county, says he witnessed a well contested fisticuff on the train between Raleigh and Hillsboro'. A man hailing from the republic of South Carolina, entertaining passengers with an account of the late battles of the Neuse, at Kinston and other places, took occasion to attribute all the disasters to Mallett's battalion. "If it had not been," said he, "for Mallett's d----d cowardly conscripts, we would have whipped the enemy, notwithstanding their number." This remark brought to his feet a soldier named Johnson, from Orange. "I belong" he said "to Mallett's battalion. I was taken prisoner. It was impossible for so few as we had, to whip such numbers as composed the enemy's army, and you must take back your offensive remarks about Mallett's battalion." The Blood said, "I did not know you belonged to it." Johnson said, "You know it now, and you must retract what you have said." Blood replied, "I shall not do it." Johnson said, "If you do not, I shall satisfy you of the pluck of Mallett's battalion by giving you the d---dist whipping that a South Carolina man ever carried." Blood replied, "If you are able." "You need not doubt that," said Johnson, and in he pitched upon the Palmetto gentleman, who made a fierce resistance, sufficient to whip any soldier except a plucky conscript. The Palmetto gentleman finally grew short-winded, and though the train was going twenty miles an hour, he seemed to think everything was standing still, except Johnson of Mallett's battalion. No one interfered, until the gentleman from South Carolina cried out lustily, "Enough, enough!" and so ended the fight; the passengers pulling Johnson off-no one was needed to hold the Blood. A stage whisper could be heard all over the car, "good, good!" and thus was Mallett's battalion vindicated, and an unbeliever convinced of its courage. DIXIE
Index to Old Newspaper Extracts