well-behaved regiment and that he had not arrested a larger per cent
of men from this regiment than from any other regiment, and that I was
at liberty to publicly use this statement.

While in the sleeper on my way home I fell in with Capt. J.C. Gresham,
of the Seventh Cavalry. Capt. Gresham is a native of Virginia, a
graduate of Richmond College and West Point, and has served many years
in the regular army. He was with Colonel Forsyth in the battle with
the Sioux at Wounded Knee, South Dakota. I had met him previously,
when I was in the United States Indian service in Kansas. He informed
me that he mustered in the first four companies of the Third North
Carolina, and the Colonel and his staff, and that he had never met a
more capable man than Colonel Young.

The Third North Carolina has never seen active service at the front,
and, as the Hispano-American war is practically a closed chapter, it
will probably be mustered out of the service without any knowledge of
actual warfare. I thought, however, as I stood on the dry goods box
and gave them kindly advice, and looked down along the line, that if
I was a soldier in a white regiment and was pitted against them, my
regiment would have to do some mighty lively work to "clean them out."

CHARLES FRANCIS MESERVE.

Shaw University,

Raleigh, N.C., Jan. 25, 1899.


[Illustration: MR. JUDSON W. LYONS, REGISTER OF THE TREASURY, AND