As Preliminary to the sketches of the dashing trooper and fearless
soldier whose name heads this article, it is perhaps proper that something
be said of his ancestry.
The founder of the Street family came over among the first Virginia
colonists who settled at Jamestown in the early part of the 17th century.
He was of pure English blood and family tradition tells of his heroism
in the Indian wars that were incident to those early colonial days.
He reared a large family. One of his sons moved southward and settled
in South Carolina.
At the beginning of the Revolutionary War, the Street family in
the old Palmetto State had grown to be a very numerious one. All
were ardent patriots and nearly every member capable of bearing arms took
part in the defense of the colonies.
The paternal grandfather of Solomon Street, volunteered at the beginning
of the revolution and served throughout that long and sanguinary struggle,
participating in many battles, enduring all the hardships incident to the
memorable winter encampment at Valley Forge and never left the service
till victory perched on the banners of the colonists. At the conclusion
of the war he married and a large family was reared by him. One of
his sons named Anderson, was the father of Solomon Street. Anderson
Street was born in 1800. At the age of 21 he was united in marriage
to Miss Keziah McBryde, a young lady of Scotch-Irish family and a woman
of great force of character. The young couple moved to the territory
now known as Tippah county and settled near the headwaters of Tippah creek,
about 6 miles west of Ripley. This was at a very early day and sometime
before the Indians left this country. Here they raised a family of
15 children, 8 girls and 7 boys, all reaching the years of maturity.
All the girls were married and all the sons volunteered in the Confederate
service. Of these, three lost their lives in defense of the Lost
Cause and each of the four who lived to return home bore upon his person
the mark of Federal bullets. Anderson Street and his wife lived together
for forty years. The wife was the first to die, while the husband
lived to a ripe old age, dying in 1889.
Captain Sol Street, about whose life and eventful career these sketches
will mostly deal, was born in 1832 and was therefore 29 years of age at
the breaking out of the war between the states. He was a man of limited
education, as was common with persons of humble life in those early days.
He was a man naturally of mild temperament, quiet and undemonstrative as
a general thing unless aroused by what he considered an injustice; then
prompt to resent wrong without fear as to the consequences. One feature
of his character developed early in life, was the prompt and faithful performance
of all his promises, no difference what their nature nor to whom made,
and a disposition to expect and require of others to do the same.
The life of General Marion, the Revolutionary hero whose name was
made famous by the successful warfare waged in South Carolina against the
British, was largely disseminated and read in Capt. Street's boyhood days.
A copy of the volume was in his father's limited library. Young Street
read this through frequently and was heard to remark during the stirring
days when he was in command of his company of scouts, that he had taken
Gen. Marion as his model and sought to carry out a line of warfare upon
the same general plan. Some time prior to the war he was married
to Miss Rhoda Balch, a young lady who was reared in the same community
with himself.
The first call to arms found Solomon among those who rallied around
the flag of the South. He volunteered in Capt. Davis' Co. F, 2nd
Miss. Reg't Inft., which left Ripley for the seat of war in Virginia on
the 30th day of April, 1861. For twelve months he served as a private
in the ranks, but the desire to organize and operate an independent troop
of cavalry scouts, implanted in his mind from the beginning, continued
to grow and augment, so at the end of one year's service in the army of
Northern Virginia, he hired a substitute and returned to Mississippi armed
with the proper authority from the Confederate government for organizing
a command after his own ideal.
Capt. Street at first did a little scouting on his own account,
among other things capturing single handed a Federal cavalryman near Davis'
Bridge on the Hatchie. The fame of these exploits soon gave him prestige
and men soon rallied to his assistance and cheerfully placed thmselves
undee his control until in January 1863 he as at the head of a company
of 25 or 30 men. Most of these had been and some were at the time
members of other commands in the Confederate army. Many were those
who had grown tired of the strict discipline of the regular army and longed
for a service that gave greater opportunities for exhibition of individual
prowess afforded by an organization like that of Capt. Street's. They
were nearly all men of determined bravery and resolution -- the very characteristics
essential in the warfare upon which they were about to enter.
Following is a partial roster of the company, the best that could
be obtained:
