The protection of the bridge over the James River at Wilton was entrusted to the midshipmen in the Patrick Henry, and although then a part of the line of battle the routine of the academy was kept up with some approach to regularity. The sixty young men and their ten officers made up an admirable, well-drilled, disciplined and efficient corps. Lieut. Parker had his orders to prepare the ship for sinking in the obstructions of the river if necessary, and he rented a warehouse at the corner of Franklin and 24th Streets in Richmond for the home of the midshipmen, and the location of stores. This was done in March 1865, but there was so little suspicion afloat that Richmond was so soon to be evacuated, that he spent the night of April 1st in the city, and it was not until the afternoon of April 2d that he received the order to have the corps and its officers at the Danville depot at 6 o'clock P. M., and report to the Quartermaster General of the army. He directed Lieut. Rochelle to execute the order, while he would remain by the ship, expecting the corps to return within a few days. In an hour or two he found out that the abandonment of the capital was intended, and then leaving Lieut. Billups and ten men to burn the ship, he joined the corps at the Danville depot. Billups and his squad performed their duty, but in the subsequent movements never overtook their comrades.

No higher compliment could have been paid the midshipmen, than the final duty entrusted to them. It was the guardianship of the train which contained the archives of the Confederate Government and the specie and bullion funds of the treasury. The corps left Richmond on the evening of April 2d, and proceeded to Danville in charge of the treasure, where Midshipman Raphael Semmes, Jr. was detailed to the staff of his father, the Admiral, and Midshipman Breckenridge was made personal aide to his father, the Secretary of War. From the 3d to the 9th the corps remained at Danville, and then moved southward. Greensboro, N. C., was reached on the 10th, and Charlotte on the 13th. At Charlotte the money was transferred to the mint, but taken out again when the escort started for Chester, S. C. At Chester the railroad was abandoned and a wagon train made up. The gold was packed in small square boxes, and the silver in kegs, and the road was taken for Newberry, S. C. Mrs. Jefferson Davis and her child (now Miss Winnie Davis, the daughter of the Confederacy") had joined the escort at Chester, and travelled in an ambulance to Newberry, where they arrived on the 15th, and left on the cars the same day for Abbeville, S. C. At Abbeville the treasure was transferred once more to wagons, and on the 17th the midshipmen took up the march for Washington, Ga., which was reached on the 19th, and Augusta on the 20th. In all this toilsome, perilous, and responsible march, Lieut. Parker was looking for President Davis or some responsible officer of the Treasury Department

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to whom he could hand over his precious trust. Beside his brave midshipmen, he had with him a company of good men under Capt. Tabb, who had joined him at the Charlotte naval station; but this force was small in comparison with the number of marauders he might at any time chance to meet. The impoverished and ravaged country was swarming with them-bummers, looters and deserters hanging on to the rear of Sherman's army, half-starved Confederates rendered desperate by suffering, roving bands of negroes, and all the rabble that infested that war-swept region. They were to be feared; and moreover, great numbers of Federal cavalry were riding on Sherman's flanks, and were on several occasions so near to the treasure train that they might have swooped down upon it. Its guards, as Parker knew and said, would have died fighting around it; but an attack by an overwhelming force upon such a tempting prize as millions of gold and silver was always possible; and he was strongly urged to divide the treasure among the men following him. But he and the corps of midshipmen were inviolate in their sense of duty, and when he placed the coin and bullion in the vaults of a bank at Augusta, they were intact. He turned the charge of the treasure over to a Treasury officer, whom he found in that city, but the midshipmen continued to guard it. They remained in Augusta during the armistice between Gens. Johnston and Sherman, Parker declining to obey an order to disband the corps so long as they were responsible for the safety of the treasure. On the termination of the armistice they took the gold and silver out of the bank and returned to Washington, Ga., still searching for President Davis. Then they struck off for Abbeville, where they arrived on April 29th. The treasure was stored in a warehouse, and President Davis and his escort came into town the next day. Secretary Mallory accompanied him, and by the Secretary's orders Lieut. Parker turned the treasure over to the Acting Secretary of the Confederate Treasury, who directed it to be delivered to Gen. Basil Duke, who commanded the cavalry detachment escorting Mr. Davis. Neither Lieut. Parker nor any of the midshipmen or officers ever knew how much money there was in the packages, which were not broken while in their charge.

The corps of cadet midshipmen was disbanded at Abbeville on May 2d, 1865, though the orders did not so read, and its members were never surrendered to the enemy or paroled. The order issued to each man simply said:

"ABBEVILLE, S. C., May 2d, 1865. "SIR: You are hereby detached from the Naval School and leave is granted you to visit your home. You will report by letter to the Hon. Secretary of the Navy as soon as possible. Paymaster Wheliss will issue you ten days' rations, and all quartermasters are requested to furnish you transportation.

"Respectfully your obedient servant,

WM. H. PARKER, Commanding.”

To have dismissed them so shabbily as indicated in the above order would have been a shameful reward for their faithful and arduous service, and at the intercession of Capt. Parker and a committee of five cadets, Postmaster General Reagan obtained the sum of $1,500, which gave $40 in gold to each midshipman, upon the receipt of which they started for their respective homes in the distant States of the Confederacy. The high esteem in which President Davis held the corps of cadet midshipmen was manifested by him when informed at Abbeville by Capt. Parker that the corps had been disbanded by the order of Secretary Mallory. "Captain," he said, "I am very sorry to hear it," and repeated the regret several times. Upon being told that the corps had been disbanded on the peremptory order of the Secretary, the President replied: "Captain, I have no fault to find with you, but I am very sorry Mr. Mallory gave you the order." The very great regret of the President was accounted for when his escort of four skeleton brigades of cavalry were seen. Though there were many in the command ready to follow and defend the President, yet demoralization had entered there too. Arms were being sold or thrown away, and it was apparent that but little reliance could be placed upon that escort. Hence the regret with which he learned that the young men, the sons of the leaders of the cause, organized, educated and trained to the discharge of duty, had been scattered, and could no longer guard and protect him in his proposed journey to the transMississippi.

Though the Confederate Naval Academy produced no record of its usefulness, yet the young men who were taught upon the decks of the Patrick Henry learned valuable lessons of self-reliance and duty, which in after life made them, without an exception, earnest, thoughtful, law-abiding men. Among those midshipmen we recall the names of Colonel Morgan, after the war a captain in the Egyptian army and subsequently consul general in Australia; Windom K. Mayo, commander of steamers and collector of customs at Norfolk, Va.; Jeff. Davis Howell, who lost his life in the brave

He

1 Jefferson Davis Howell was born at Natchez, Mississippi, in 1846. His father, William Burr Howell, born in New Jersey, was appointed an ensign and third lieutenant in the 15th Regiment of the U. S. Inf, on August the 19th, 1813. was promoted to second lieutenant in March, 1814, and served throughout the war of 181214. While serving as an officer of marines in McDonough's victory on Lake Champlain, on board the ship Saratoga, Lieut. Howell greatly distinguished himself. Captain White Youngs, of the 15th Inf., commanding a detachment of acting marines, in his report to Com. McDonough thus mentions him: "Second Lieut. William H. Howell, 15th Inf., in the U. S. ship Saratoga, rendered me every assistance; notwithstanding his having been confined for ten days of a fever, yet, at the commencement of the action, he was found on deck, and continued until the enemy

had struck, when he was borne to his bed. I would also recommend him to your notice."

At the close of the war in May, 1815, Lieut. Howell was retained in the artillery branch of the service, but declined the honor, and soon after resigned. He married Margaret Graham Kemp, native of Virginia. She was the daughter of Col. Kemp. of Natchez, Miss., where Mr. Howell resided for many years; he afterwards removed to New Orleans, where he was appointed deputy surveyor of the port. He had eleven children, Jefferson Davis Howell being the youngest. He was named after Hon. Jefferson Davis, who had married his sister on February 26th, 1845.

Jefferson Davis Howell was educated at Burlington, N. J., Washington, D. C., and Richmond, Va. He was of an active and adventurous temperament, and like most young men in the