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from Harper's New Monthly Magazine's "Editor's Drawer"
A READER of the Drawer in Springfield, Illinois, writes of a regiment stationed at Alton, and famous as the “Gray Beard Regiment,” every man being over forty-five years of age. They were there to guard rebel prisoners, among whom was the notorious Jeff Thompson. He was about to be removed, with others, to Johnson’s Island, and on his march out he saw these veterans, and remarked, “Well, it’s no wonder the Federal soldiers fight well, if these are their fathers!”
"Editor's Drawer", Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 28, Issue 164, January 1864, page 282, New York: Harper and Brother's
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