I'm not sure why this, perhaps dying, Confederate soldier's request moved me, but here is the background.

Just 149 years ago this summer, William Russel Howard was touring the fragmenting USA to cover the impending civil war. He had made his name as a war correspondent, for the (London) Times in his coverage of the heroism and iniquities if the Crimean War half a decade before. He toured the slave- owning south, having set out as neutral over the issues, including slavery, though sadly I lack that volume. The book I have covers his movements following his decision to go north, into Federal terrotory, because the blockade meant he could no longer send his dispatches home. The Confederates did not hinder his travels, which perhaps led to the suspicions which accompanied his stay in the north. Eventually, the hindrances placed in his way by Federal officials led him to abandon his mission to cover the war, and he went back to England. Much, in my opinion, to the loss of both the USA and history.

On his journey north, he travelled up the Mississippi from Vicksburg to Memphis. There were soldiers being transported north on board; and it appears that some of these fell sick; fever and dysentery are I suppose normal around the great river. They appeared to have little medical attention, and Russel treated some of them using his own medicine chest, for which they were duly grateful.

But he wrote of one of these who spoke to him:

"Stranger, remember, if I die," gasped one great fellow, attenuated to a skeleton by dysentery, "That I am Robert Tallon, of Tishimingo County, and that I died for States' rights; see, now, put that in the papers, won't you? Robert Tallon died for States' rights," and so he turned round on his blanket.

Well, I don't like the cause, and I'm not sure (and neither I think was Russel) if he died then. Perhaps he died; perhaps he recovered, to die on the battlefield, or of another disease, or peacefully in a changed country. But Russel respected his request, and though his cause was wrong and his death perhaps inglorious, we can remember his distress, 149 years ago on the 14th of July.

Does anyone know where Tishimingo County is, or if Tallons still live there?