My father's first cousin, John L. Russell of Orlando, FL, has the notebook of W. A. Russell. He discovered it within the last year in an old compartment of a cabinet which once belonged to W. A. Russell. I read of this many years ago only as a copy in his son's journal. I do not know how accurately his son copied the original and will not until I get a copy of the actual notebook. I have written and asked for a copy. According to my great grandfather's journal, W. A. does not mention burning any stores (that does not mean they did not), just raiding the depot and "riding like hell" to get a small wagon train of supplies back to the Confederate lines. The Confederate horsemen around him, he said, were laughing and shouting like wild men, and Yankee bullets were whistling through the air. He spoke of the run for the Confederate lines as a 'a dreamlike, surreal experience'. As I said before, William Angus Russell was an educated man, a school teacher and later a doctor.

Bob Lawrence