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Chapter 1 A YOUNG PATRIOT VOLUNTEERS
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He was tall and straight, touching on the sfender in build. His eyes were a clear blue-grey, his hair a dark/brown. His name was Marion Francis Baxter, and he was	the youngest boyi
who volunteered to defend the Confederate States of America. He served four full years in the Confederate army, and his experiences covered a range not shared by many of his brothers-in-arms. Skirmishes, pitched battles, action on foot and mounted, a prisoner of war - all these and many more were his. And throughout the war, he accepted his lot - no matter how hazardous or uncomfortable - with good humor, ingenuity, and bravery. He proved over and over again the truth of the saying that the only formula for happy soldiering is to be young and unattached.
And young he was, halfway between 13 and 14 years old, on that late spring morning when he left home to enroll in a volunteer company of infantry. Slipping away from home (and his father, brothers, and sisters - his mother was dead) in the sleepy little coastal village of Mississippi City on May 5, 1861, he made his way to Handsboro, a thriving commercial town on the Bay of Biloxi. Handsboro (it was spelled Handsborough then) lay a few miles north of Mississippi City and was a sawmill and lumbering center. Here was being organized a volunteer infantry company, Adams Rifles, with Capt. Fleming W. Adams as commander and chief recruiter. Adams was a prominent local business and civic leader. At this time early in the war, both Federals and Confederates had adopted the practice of recruitment by states, and in turn, recruitment by prominent men at the local level. These men, like adams, were rewarded by being named commander of the company thus organized. Once enough volunteers had been enrolled to bring the company up to operational strength, it became part of a state regiment.
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