ell to all my dear ones, and in company with my
brother-in-law, Colonel John S. Saunders, proceeded toward Mayo's
Bridge, which we crossed to the south side of the James, in the
lurid glare of the fire, and within the sound of several heavy
explosions that we took to be the final scene in the career of the
Confederate navy, then disappearing in smoke on the James River,
near Rockets.

Before we departed from the colonel's library, which we felt obliged to
do much sooner than we wished to, owing to the condition of his health,
he called our attention to an oil portrait of his old commander, which
occupied the place of honor above the mantelpiece, and asked his
daughters to let us see his scrap-book, containing personal letters from
General Lee, Jefferson Davis, and other distinguished men, as well as
various war documents of unusual interest.

We felt it a great privilege to handle these old letters and to read
them, and the charm of them was the greater for the affection in which
the general held Colonel Taylor, as evidenced by the tone in which he
wrote. To us it was a wonderful evening.... And it still seems to me
wonderful to think that I have met and talked with a man who issued
Lee's orders, who rode forth with Lee when he went to meet Grant in
conference at Appomattox, just before the surrender, who once slept
under the same blanket with Lee, who knew Lee as well perhaps as one man
can know another, and under conditions calculated to try men to the
utmost.

As adjutant, Colonel Taylor took an active part in arranging details of
surrender and parole. He says:

Each officer and soldier was furnished for his protection from
arrest or annoyance with a slip of paper containing his parole,
signed by his commander and countersigned by an officer of the
Federal army.

I signed these paroles for all members of the staff, and when my
own case was reached I requested General Lee to sign mine, which I
have retained to the present time.

This document, with Colonel Taylor's name and title in his own
handwriting, and the signature of General Lee, I am able to reproduce
here through the courtesy of the colonel's daughters, Mrs. William B.
Baldwin and Miss Taylor, of Norfolk. It is the only parole which was
signed personally by General Lee.

[Illustration]

On the back of the little slip, which is of about the size of a bank
check, is the countersignature