CENTENNIAL TALE; Memoirs Of Colonel “Chester” S. Bassett French

Extra Aide-de-Camp to Generals Lee and Jackson, The Army of Northern Virginia, 1861-1865

Colonel S. Bassett French, was born in Norfolk, Virginia, on March 31, 1820. He was educated at the Classical School of George Halson in Norfolk and at Hampton-Sidney College. He studied law with Robert Y. Conrad of Winchester, Va. and was licensed to practice law in 1840. Colonel French was Commonwealth Attorney in the Circuit Court of Chesterfield for several years and was Assistant Clerk of the House of Delegates of Virginia, being on very intimate terms with the distinguished and able legislators and statesmen of Virginia during those years, a fact which these memoirs clearly confirm. He was Secretary to Governor John Letcher, by whom he was appointed as special agent to the Confederacy, and in this capacity he was with Lee and Jackson in the Army of Northern Virginia, 1861-1865, bearing the Commission of Extra Aide-de-Camp to the Commander-in-Chief, a copy of which is herewith presented.

These memoirs give us a keen insight to the characters of Lee, Jackson, Stuart, A. P. Hill and others not found in the writings of many authors who have published their fond recollections of those great “Virginia” soldiers and generals. The stories about them will be cherished. Revealed here, too, is the character of the writer, Colonel “Chester,” “the jauntiest little man (130 pounds) in the Army of Northern Virginia, as Dr. Todd said of him when the train to Richmond was captured by the Yankees at Ashland. His escapades and escapes (he always escaped), his fondness for fine feeding, his rebukes from Lee and Jackson, his heart-warming associations with men and women in the experiences of war and the wit and wisdom of his active mind excite our admiration and thrill our hearts and souls. When the record ends and the book is closed, one must stop for a while and muse, “Surely, here was an unusual man.”