William W. Bennett, A narrative of the great revival which prevailed in the Southern armies during the late Civil War

[154] and, taking the hand of the chaplain, he said, “It is a glorious thing to be a Christian.” His face was radiant with divine peace in the midst of a storm of bullets. How clearly this incident illustrates the power of grace as expressed in that comforting passage, “Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on thee, because he trusteth in thee.”

Among the noble men who fell during this period were two faithful chaplains, Rev. J. W. Timberlake of Florida, attached to the 2d Florida regiment, and Rev. W. H. C. Cone of Georgia, chaplain of the 19th Georgia regiment.

Mr. Timberlake came to Virginia in feeble health, but was indefatigable in his exertions to promote the temporal and spiritual welfare of his regiment. One who knew him as an intimate friend says:

Mr. Timberlake was certainly a model man, and one whose untiring zeal and energy in the cause of his country is worthy of emulation, and whose self-sacrificing observance of duty has placed him in a premature grave. His devotion to our sick soldiers while in the city of Richmond left a remembrance which time will not soon efface from the hearts of his many friends there.

He died of consumption at West Point, on York river, and quietly sleeps beneath the soil which he gladly came to defend.

Rev. Mr. Cone was exhausted and broken down by long marches and exposure in the Peninsula. “Becoming very warm after a march, he imprudently bathed in a stream near the roadside, which produced a check of perspiration, terminating in typhoid fever. The regiment being on the retreat, and doing picket duty, there was but little accommodation for the sick. He fell behind, and a Presbyterian clergyman said he saw him lying by the road on the wet ground, where the mud was splashed on him by the passing army. He was taken up and sent to Richmond in a delirious state. Not being ”