Tribute to Major H. Van McCain Contributed by Greggory E. Davies ********************************************** Copyright. All rights reserved. http://usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://usgwarchives.net/la/lafiles.htm ********************************************** Greggory E. Davies 120 Ted Price Lane Winnfield, LA 71483 There is no such thing as death, it is only a change of form and you have fallen in our loving embrace to be pressed to our hearts forever. Many of us have been here so long and have seen our loved ones pass away that to a great degree we live in the past. There is but one recognized force in nature, and that is love, and in the endless chain we are carried on through the labyrinth of life; its law is dominant to us. Those of us who hope for the purification of the mind that leads to the sanctification of the temperal and spiritual nature, then the millennium. As all men are a quotation of other men, we have here the finest results. Jam. McCain spent most of his life near and in Montgomery, with its crown of beautiful trees and smiling red prairies that are so dear to us who love the place with all the halo of romance and reality surrounding our lives. Well do I remember him in his youth and when the Beauregard Fencibles, containing 180 men, left Winn Parish. They were mustered at Hosea Sos Springs and after roll call Major McCain was elected Captain, and went to the old church for the flag presentation and received the blessings, marched away. the embarked on the Starlight, the last roll call on the bank and the farewells and tears are all with me today. This mere stripling led his men to battle and what a record they made. Glorious. The Twelfth Louisiana was in over one hundred pitched battles and no odds of skirmishes and out of losses John Prothro, Hesekiah Armstrong, James Reitzell, Wm. Rodgers, Albert Noble and many more we can not recall. Winn parish was thinly settled, but no parish sent more troops to the Confederate army as compared with population than Winn. The Companies were Pierson's, McCain's, Dixon's, Hardy's, Cooper's, Morris's, Sharp's, and four troops of recruits. There is a geographical partition but none in sentiment and we are Winn parish yet. Tis very easy to criticize in the face and fact of defeat. The south was worn out by numbers and resources. No matter the cause or results the Lost Cause is made sacred to us by the sacrifices we made. There is an aristocracy of the moment, born of the blood, one hour of which is worth a thousand years and these soldiers are embalmed in our hearts with sweet memorial honors forever. MILTON DUNN (The above obituary obtained from Northwestern State University of Louisiana, Watson Memorial Library, Cammie G. Henry Research Center, Natchitoches, LA, Melrose Collection, Scrapbook 67. This obituary was written by the late, great historian Dr. Milton Dunn but it is not is not known which newspaper it appeared in. It probably appeared in most of the area newspapers, as Dr. Dunn was a well-respected historian in Winn, Grant, Natchitoches, and Rapides Parishes. Submitted by Greggory Ellis Davies, Winnfield, LA)