ite the famous poem, "The Blue and the Gray,"
for when that poem was first published in the "Atlantic Monthly" for
September, 1867, it carried the following headnote:

The women of Columbus, Miss., animated by noble sentiments, have
shown themselves impartial in their offerings to the memory of the
dead. They strewed flowers on the graves of the Confederate and of
the National soldiers.

This episode becomes the more touching by reason of the fact that the
Columbus lady who initiated the movement to place flowers on the Union
graves, at a time when such action was sure to provoke much criticism in
the South, was Mrs. Augusta Murdock Sykes, herself the widow of a
Confederate soldier.

So with an equal splendor
The morning sun rays fall,
With a touch impartially tender
On the blossoms blooming for all;
Under the sod and the dew,
Waiting the Judgment Day;
Broidered with gold the Blue;
Mellowed with gold the Gray.

CHAPTER XLIII

OUT OF THE LONG AGO

While local historians attempt to tangle up the exploration of De Soto
with the early history of this region, saying that De Soto "entered the
State of Mississippi near the site of Columbus," and that "he probably
crossed the Tombigbee River at this point," their conclusions are
largely the result of guesswork. But it is not guesswork to say that
when the Kentucky and Tennessee volunteers, going to the aid of Andrew
Jackson, at New Orleans, in 1814, cut a military road from Tuscumbia,
Alabama, to the Gulf, they passed over the site of Columbus, for the
road they cut remains to-day one of the principal highways of the
district as well as one of the chief streets of the town.

More clearly defined, of course, are memories of the Civil War and of
Reconstruction, for there are many present-day residents of Columbus who
remember both. Among these is one of those wonderful, sweet,
high-spirited, and altogether fascinating ladies whom we call old only
because their hair is white and because a number of years have passed
over their heads--one of those glorious young old ladies in which the
South is, I think, richer than any other single section of the world.

It was our good fortune to meet Mrs. John Billups, and to see some of
her treasured relics--among them the flag carried through the battles of
Monterey and Buena Vista by the First Mississippi Regiment, of which
Jefferson Davis was colonel, and in which