regiment to serve as aide-de-camp on the staff of General Slocum; and his services in this capacity won for him his brevet as captain, March 19, 1865. General Slocum in an article entitled "Sherman's March from Savannah to Bcntonville," in Vol. IV "Battles and Leaders of the Civil War," says of the conduct of his aide-de-camp on the morning of March 19, 1865, when warned by a deserter of the determination of General Johnston to attack the left wing "and smash it": "I regretted that I had sent the message to General Sherman assuring him that I needed no help, and saw the necessity of giving him information at once as to the situation. This information was carried to General Sherman by a young man not then twenty years of age, but who was full of energy and activity and was always reliable. He was then the youngest member of my staff. He is now, 1888, governor of Ohio, Joseph B. Foraker. His work on this day secured him promotion to the rank of captain. Some years after the close of the war Foraker wrote to me calling my attention to some errors in a published account of this battle of Bentonville and saying . . ." What General Slocum quotes from the letter occupies nearly the whole of page 693, in small type, and in it Captain Foraker describes his part on the morning following the battle of Bcntonville, the manner in which his message was received and the prompt action of the general officers in affording the relief to Slocum that made one of the last great battles of the Civil war a victory for the Federal army, and forced upon the Confederates the surrender of Johnston's army at Durham Station, North Carolina, forty days afterward. An incident displaying equal valor and determination would occupy pages of history if performed by a general officer, and no biographer of Senator Foraker would do justice to his subject did he not record the incident and give the historian of the future proof of the possibility of a lieutenant at nineteen doing a famous deed of valor by faithfully carrying out an order given by a superior officer. The war closed, and the general and his aide rode at the head of the left wing of Sherman's army down Pennsylvania avenue to be reviewed by the president and secretary of war, and to be welcomed home by a grateful nation, and Captain Foraker received his honorable discharge and returned to his home. That General Sherman highly appreciated and gratefully remembered the service above noted is shown by the fact that in the course of an address at a reunion of the Army of the Tennessee, he turned to Governor Foraker and said:
