s horribly mangled & I know death is inevitable.
I am very weak but I write to you because I know you would be
delighted to read a word from your dying son. I know death is near,
that I will die far from home and friends of my early youth, but I
have friends here, too, who are kind to me. My Friend Fairfax will
write you at my request and give you the particulars of my death.
My grave will be marked so that you may visit it if you desire to
do so, but it is optionary with you whether you let my remains rest
here or in Mississippi. I would like to rest in the graveyard with
my dear mother and brothers, but it is a matter of minor
importance. Let us all try to reunite in heaven. I pray my God to
forgive my sins & I feel that his promises are true, that he will
forgive me and save me. Give my love to all my friends. My strength
fails me. My horse & my equipments will be left for you. Again a
long farewell to you. May we meet in heaven.

Your Dying Son,
J.R. Montgomery.

CHAPTER XXII

RANDOM RICHMOND NOTES

Richmond may again be likened to Boston as a literary center. In an
article published some years ago in "Book News" Alice M. Tyler refers to
Colonel William Byrd, who founded Richmond in 1733, as the sprightliest
and most genial native American writer before Franklin. In the time of
Chief Justice Marshall, Richmond had a considerable group of novelists,
historians and essayists, but the great literary name connected with the
place is that of Edgar Allan Poe, who spent much of his boyhood in the
city and later edited the "Southern Literary Messenger." Matthew
Fontaine Maury, the great scientist, mentioned in an earlier chapter,
was, at another time, editor of the same periodical, as was also John
Reuben Thompson, "Poet of the Confederacy," who wrote, among other
poems, "Music in Camp," and who translated Gustave Nadaud's familiar
poem, "Carcassonne."

Thomas Nelson Page made his home in Richmond for thirty years; Amelie
Rives was born there and still maintains her residence in Albemarle
County, Virginia, while among other writers of the present time
connected with the city either by birth or long association are, Henry
Sydnor Harrison, Mary Johnston, Ellen Glasgow, Marion Harland, Kate
Langley Bosher, James Branch Cabell, Edward Peple, dramatist, J.H.
Whitty, biographer of Poe, and Colonel W. Gordon McCabe, soldier,
his