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John C. Stiles, of Brunswick, Ga., takes this tribute from "Four Years under Marse Robert," by Maj. Robert Stiles:

"Not often have I come in contact with relations more beautiful than existed in some cases between young Southern masters in the service and their slave attendants. These latter belonged for the most part to one of two clases; either they were mature and faithful men, to whose care the lads' parents had committed them or else they were the special chums and playmates of their young masters' boyhood days and perhaps had attended and waited upon them in college.

"My first cousin, William Henry Stiles, Jr., captain in the 60th Georgia Infantry, of which his father was colonel, was wounded late in the evening of the battle of Fredericksburg; but the casualty was not generally known, probably because the surgeons finding him on the field, after a hurried examination, pronounced his wound mortal and added, "We are sorry to leave you, Captain, but we have all we can do,' to which he replied: 'Certainly, gentleman, go and attend to the men; but you are mistaken about me. I haven't the least idea of dying.' So they left him. Neither his father nor any member of his company was aware of his locality; but there was one faithful soul to whom he was more the all the regiment. If his master continued missing, the world was empty to him; and so in cold darkness, and sadness he searched every foot of the ground the regiment had fought over till at last he found him. The the failthful slave wandered about until he got from the bodies of the dead blankets enough to make a warm, soft bed, carefully lifted his master onto it, and covered him snugly. He then managed to start a fire and got water for him, and finally, most important of all, he got from the body of a dead Federal officer a small flask of brandy and stimulated him carefully. About daylight the doctors came again and, surprised to find the captain alive, made a more careful examination and found that the ball had passed entirely through his body just between the upper and lower vital parts, but that he would have died from exposure had it not been for the faithful love that refused to be satisfied until it had found and provided for him."

I shall add that my uncle's wound was received on the night of December 13; and although the bullet going through struck a toothbrush and scattered bristles all through his body, it is said that twelve days later he was able to walk unaided up to the third story of a house in Richmond.