in my feeble power. When I add to this that I was 24 years of age,
and naturally affected largely by the ideas, the enthusiasm and
the excitement of my surroundings, it is easy to understand to what
conclusions I was led."

So on June 17, 1861, he volunteered in the Stafford Guards under Capt.
(afterward Brigadier General) L.A. Stafford. The Guards became company
B of the 9th Regiment of Louisiana Volunteers, Confederate States of
America, Colonel (later Brigadier General) "Dick" Taylor (son of
"Old Zach," the President of the U.S.), in command. During the year
that followed until the close of the war, Handerson experienced the
adventures and trials of a soldier's life. He knew picket, scouting,
and skirmishing duty, the bivouac, the attack and defense in battle
formation, the charge, the retreat, hunger and thirst, the wearisome
march in heat and dust, in cold, in rain, through swamps and stony
wildernesses. He was shot through the hat and clothing and once
through the muscles of the shoulder and neck within half inch of the
carotid artery, lay in a hospital, and had secondary hemorrhage. At
another time he survived weeks of typhoid fever.

He was successively private soldier and accountant for his company,
quarter-master, 2nd Lieutenant of the line, Captain of the line, and
finally Adjutant General of the 2nd Louisiana Brigade, A. N. Va.,
under Lee and Jackson, with rank of Major. On May 4, 1864, Adjutant
General Handerson was taken prisoner, and from May 17th until August
20th he was imprisoned at Fort Delaware in the Delaware river. He
was then confined in a stockade enclosure on the beach between Forts
Wagner and Gregg on Morris Island, until about the end of October,
when he was transferred to Fort Pulaski at the mouth of the Savannah
river, and in March, 1865, back to Fort Delaware. In April, after