[Gutenberg 64039] • The Blue Balloon · A Tale of the Shenandoah Valley

Excerpt from The Blue Balloon: A Tale of the Shenandoah Valley

In the valley lay the town of Staunton, the capital of Augusta county, Virginia, and the presumed objective of one section of the Federal advance. Here, when the war began, lived a youth named Ephraim Sykes, more commonly known as 'old Grizzly.' Not that he at all resembled that ferocious animal either in person or in disposition, for his manners were mild and inoffensive; but since his Christian name happened to coincide with the sobriquet usually bestowed upon the grizzly bear - namely, Ephraim -a happy thought occurred one day to a youthful wag of Staunton. So Ephraim Sykes was promptly dubbed Old Grizzly, ' and as such was known ever afterwards.

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