A hero comes home.
Posted on 04/09/2002 6:10:39 AM PDT by aomagrat
Edited on 05/07/2004 9:05:56 PM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
LAURENS S.C. -- Confederate Capt. William Downs Farley said just before his death that when he died he wanted to be brought home to Laurens County.
After 139 years, he's finally home.
The Laurens-based Brig. Gen. Samuel McGowan Camp 40 Sons of Confederate Soldiers are happy to have Farley home again.
(Excerpt) Read more at greenvilleonline.com ...
A hero comes home.
Did anyone catch this? Gentry is the guy who found the Capt's remains and brought them back. Methinks it should have read Farley....
But if soldiers of the Wehrmacht were heroes then so were the soldiers of the US. If there were no heroes in Germany, there were no heroes in the US.
There, run rings around you logically.
Another fine Son of the South whose last wish was finally honored. Pay no mind to the Yankee PC whores that will try to denegrate this hero's sacrifice.
Scout goes on his last ride
April 8, 2002 5:15 am
Re-enactor Ripley Robinson (center) salutes Capt. William Downs Farley at this weekend's graveside ceremony in Culpeper's Fairview Cemetery. Farley, a scout for Confederate Gen. J.E.B. Stuart who was killed in 1863 during the Battle of Brandy Station, had requested that he be buried in South Carolina if he died in battle.
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A police officer salutes as the horse-drawn caisson carrying the cavalryman's remains crosses Main Street in downtown Culpeper. Mourners and re-enactors followed the procession from Fairview Cemetery to St. Stephens Episcopal Church.
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Stuart aide's remains sent home
HIS COFFIN MOUNTED on a caisson drawn by a team of handsome sorrel draft horses, Capt. William Downs Farley began his long journey home Saturday.
Following services at Culpeper's Fairview Cemetery and St. Stephens Episcopal Church, the remains of Gen. J.E.B. Stuart's chief scout were officially turned over to a delegation from the Confederate's hometown of Laurens, S.C.
For nearly 140 years, this son of an aristocratic Southern family had rested in a donated grave just a few miles from where he had fallen on June 9, 1863, during the Battle of Brandy Station.
Only a few short days before a Yankee cannonball severed his right leg at the knee and brought death within hours, the much admired and respected Farley had handed his new Confederate overcoat to a Culpeper lady with but one request.
"If anything befalls me, wrap me in this and send me to my mother," he told the lady, whose identity may forever be shrouded in mystery.
Finally, Will Farley's last wish has been granted and today his remains are home in his native South Carolina. A funeral for the dashing young hero will be held on April 27 in Laurens, with burial to follow in the family section of the town cemetery there.
About 40 Laurenians were on hand for Saturday's Culpeper ceremonies, among them Steve Cline, a member of the South Carolina Sons of Confederate Veterans who accepted Farley's remains and presented local re-enactors with a state flag that was symbolically draped over the plain wooden coffin.
A contingent of Culpeper historians, including attorney Ed Gentry, the driving force behind returning Farley to his native soil, is expected to attend the reinterment services in Laurens.
Gentry, who delivered the eulogy at St. Stephens on Saturday, called Farley a man "who did not turn away, but made those choices that made him the gentleman, the friend, the officer and the warrior that he was."
Gentry also quoted from a letter Stuart wrote to Farley's mother in which he said: "[Your son] displayed even in death the same loftiness of bearing and fortitude which have characterized him through life.
"He served without emolument, long, faithfully and always with distinction. No nobler champion has fallen."
Earlier, during services at the grave site where Farley's remains rested for almost a century and a half, Culpeper author Virginia Morton read a letter the Confederate's unknown lady friend wrote to his mother.
In it, the woman told of some of Farley's daring exploits during the Federal occupation of Culpeper and how he was "the first to come when the enemy was leaving."
Bob Luddy, president of the Brandy Station Foundation, unveiled a new marker on Farley's grave that detailed the story of Stuart's fallen aide.
"We are here to complete his final wish and return him to his home state," Luddy said. "It is a totally appropriate gesture."
Dyanne Holt, president of Culpeper Chapter 73 of the United Daughters of the Confederacy, Susan Williams, vice-president of the Cedar Mountain Chapter of the Order of Southern Gray, and Dwight Parker, commander of the Brandy Rifles (Sons of Confederate Veterans), laid wreaths on the old grave site.
Followed by about 60 mourners on foot and accompanied by the symbolic riderless horse draped in black, Farley's remains were then taken to St. Stephens in a 30-minute processional.
Found & Sons Funeral Home was in charge of arrangements, donating the coffin and providing transportation of the remains to South Carolina.
On the day of his death, Farley had been sent by Stuart from Brandy Station to Stevensburg, five miles to the south, to tell Gen. Matthew Calbraith Butler of the 2nd South Carolina to hold firm in his position.
Farley was delivering his message when a Yankee cannonball from Hansborough's Ridge, almost a mile away, struck Butler, cutting his foot off at the ankle, passed through both the general's and Farley's horses and severed the scout's leg at the knee.
According to a letter Butler later wrote, Farley refused medical attention until the general had been attended to.
He then had Lt. John T. Rhett bring him his severed leg.
"He took it," Rhett later wrote, "and pressed it to his bosom as one would a child and said, smiling, 'It is an old friend, gentlemen, and I do not wish to part from it.'"
By nightfall, the 27-year-old Farley, a lawyer and a graduate of the University of Virginia, was dead from shock and loss of blood.
When his remains were disinterred last October by an archaeological group headed by Douglas Owsley of the Smithsonian Institution, leather believed to be part of a bridle rein that had been used as a tourniquet was found in Farley's grave.
The outline of his severed leg was easily discernable where it had been placed beside the slain scout's body.
Farley was buried in the Dr. Charles William Ashby section of Fairview Cemetery. Historians have long wondered why he was laid to rest beside the eminent Culpeper physician who had died two years earlier, but it is believed that the mystery woman in Farley's life was somehow related to the doctor.
Gentry, who became fascinated with the Farley story, has tried for more than 20 years to return the South Carolinian's remains to Laurens. Finally, early last year, Chip Heartfield, a descendant of the Ashby family, was located and gave permission for Stuart's scout to be disinterred.
Heartfield and at least one other descendant of the Ashby family were on hand for Saturday's services.
In the very sanctuary where Stuart worshipped when in Culpeper, the Rev. Michael Gray, rector of St. Stephens, stressed the importance of "just getting home."
Between the echoes of traditional Southern hymns, he spoke of Old Testament characters such as Abraham and Moses whose God-appointed duty it was to get their people home.
"Today marks the beginning of another such journey just to get back home," he said.
Amid an honor guard of re-enactors clad in Southern gray and a crowd of ladies adorned with the feathered bonnets of a bygone era, Will Farley's remains were taken from St. Stephens and carried home.
Culpeper and Virginia bade farewell to an adopted son who served his country well. And South Carolina welcomed home one who gave his last full measure of devotion to the cause in which he believed.
"At last, my friends, I'm going home" is the last line from a poem Gentry penned for yesterday's occasion and read with great emotion.
The Rev. Gray, in his final remarks, noted, "[Farley's] request, so long delayed, is finally honored."
And as pallbearers prepared to carry the coffin from the church, Gentry echoed the sentiments of all those present.
"God bless you, Capt. Farley. Godspeed and safe passage."
Today, one who sacrificed all for his country is home again.
Copyright 2001 The Free Lance-Star Publishing Company.
And if mormons are Christians then so are the white separatists.
I realize that "the Confederacy" has been converted and adapted by simple minds who don't care to really understand the era and why the war--brewing for decades over the slavery question--came about in the first place.
As I said: I appreciate the history and the bravery of the combatants on both sides.
But I cannot picture in my mind a "hero" fighting to make sure that a race of people are kept in bondage. That just doesn't fit.
Something you might consider next time you get ready to express an opinion on a thread.
That's because you are taken in by specious arguments that have no merit. Try wrapping your mind around the truth. Some of the Confederate (and Union) soldiers were not there of their own free will. Ever heard of "conscription"?
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