Difficult has been my task in compiling my membership record, and only through the courtesy and kindness of Maj. R. T. Fouche and Col. Charles M. Harper, who gave me valuable data, am I enabled to chronicle a record of which I am justly proud - for my hero yielded up his life in defense of the South e're mine had begun, and my mother's heartaches too much yet - thirty-nine years later - to refer at length to the sorrowful day that deprived her of brother and mother, for one month from the day news came of her boy's death, the mother - heart broke and with never a moan - she joined her brave soldier boy in the land of eternal peace.

For the privilege which I so much enjoy of being a "Daughter of the Confederacy," I am indebted to my uncle William Sinclair Booton, who was born in Madison County, Va., November 9th, 1838, killed on Gettysburg Heights July 3d, 1863.

In 1859 he came to Rome and when the call to arms resounded was among the first to volunteer, enlisting in the Rome Light Guards May 27th, 1861. Upon enlistment this company was made Co. A 8th Georgia Regiment, the position on the right, a post of honor they held with distinction through all the vicissitudes of war from the first bloody battle of Manassas, where Gen. Beauregard in passing said, "I Salute the 8th Georgia! History shall never forget you!" to the last sad war scene enacted at Appomattox Court House April 9th, 1865.

W. S. Booton began his military career in his own native state at Richmond, for which point the regiment passed on to join Gen. Jos. E. Johnston at Harper's Ferry. He was in the thick of the fight at Bull Run, where Floyd County men seemed the shining marks death delighted in, but escaped unhurt. In all the battles in which the regiment engaged, he bore his part up to the seven days' fight around Richmond. At Mechanicsville, June 26th, '62, the fighting raged, next day further on McClellan's right at Gaines' Mill and in the afternoon, Cold Harbor.

Saturday the 28th, Company B was ordered out as skirmishers to cover the front of the advancing columns and drive in the enemy's pickets. The fight which then occurred was at short range and there my uncle received a severe wound in the thigh. For some time he was incapacitated for duty, but upon recovering, directly opposed to his physician's command, he reported for work, and was soon on the march to join his regiment at the front. Regarding his return, I quote from his diary: "Sept. 8th '62. Resumed the march this morning begun one week ago - reached Regiment at 10 A.M. Found it terribly reduced by the late fights, 150 men reporting for duty. Our boys in good spirits, though much worn-out by war. We are near Fredericktown, secession flags flying from many windows, though we are reaching a section where the Yankee element is in the ascendancy. My observation leads me to the conclusion that Maryland won't do to tie to."

Before the Maryland campaign was concluded my uncle was detailed for work at Brigade headquarters under Gen. Anderson. Here I again quote: "Sept. 19th, '62. Fight raging, we are three miles south of Sharpsburg. Gen. Toombs wounded. Again we have met the 33d New York regiment, the third time we have come in contact. I was shot by one of them near Richmond. The boys say not many of them left, we have almost demoralized them."

At Hagerstown, Md., this entry is made to show how sanguine was the undaunted spirit: "Various rumors afloat. Seems rather ominous for us, but all will come right. Where we go next, time will tell and who can doubt we will ultimately gain our independence and an honorable peace outside of the once glorious but now contemptible union."

Many bloody conflicts occur in the passage north, alternately a battle won, then the day lost, an advance and retreat follow in quick succession, the graves attesting the carnage of the day. By officers and men it was felt the crisis was reached at Gettysburg Heights. At this time the position held by my uncle as secretary to Gen. Anderson relieved him from all other duties, but when Lee's army, after that wonderful night's march, confronted Meade's forces and the Rome Light Guards approached with only three officers and twenty-one men, impelled by a stern sense of duty and pure patriotism, he applied to Gen. Anderson for permission to again enter the ranks. The request was at first denied, but being urged was granted him, so he grasped a rifle from a weary, foot-sore soldier, dragging himself along, and promptly fell in line with his comrades, the peerless twenty-three privates, and with them made that daring charge on the enemy entrenched on Gettysburg Heights. In the front where brave men love to die, one of the first shots fired on that awful, memorable 3d of July struck him and instantly he expired. Surrounded by many relatives and friends he fell, but the misfortunes of war are such, in the haste to obey the command which followed, he was left on the field. A comrade and warm personal friend of his leaned over his form, caught up his watch, gathered the few mementos from his pocket, cut a lock of hair to tenderly bring back to the grief-stricken ones at home, then obeying the sad order to "fall back" left him alone with the dead. Later a cousin in a Virginia regiment returned to the battlefield to the spot remembered but nowhere could he find the body of my uncle, who, with the thousands that fell, had already been buried.

So in an alien land far from his own, where "glory guards in solemn round, the bivouac of the dead, my hero in dreamless sleep under the sod and dew," awaits the Judgment Day. After giving me desired information, Maj. Fouche pays this tribute to his comrade: "My association with Will was of the most intimate character and I knew him well. His thoughts were pure and chaste, his deportment always dignified and gentle, his manner affable, but with it all he had the unflinching courage of a Lee. When he fell his family lost a jewel, his country a hero."

Another tribute greatly appreciated comes from Col. C. M. Harper: "Your uncle was one of the most modest men I ever knew, and one of the most popular in the regiment. Though exempt from battle duty his great zeal and patriotism prompted him to do all in his power for his beloved Southland, daring and doing unto death. 'Greater love hath no man.' Alas, alas! how many gallant youths in the budding of brilliant manhood were lost to the South in those trying years of the 60's whose places can never be filled! But there were none gentler, braver, nobler than William S. Booton of Co. A 8th Georgia Volunteers, C.S.A."