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Title: The privations of a private
        The campaign under Gen. R. E. Lee; the campaign under Gen. Stonewall Jackson; Bragg's invasion of Kentucky; the Chickamauga campaign; the Wilderness campaign; prison life in the North; the privations of a citizen; the Ku-Klux Klan; a united citizenship; retrospection

Author: Marcus B. Toney


        
Release date: March 14, 2026 [eBook #78204]

Language: English

Original publication: Nashville, TN: Publishing House of the M. E. Church, South, 1905

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/78204

Credits: Bob Taylor and The Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PRIVATIONS OF A PRIVATE ***




Transcriber's Note

  Italic text displayed as: _italic_
  Gesperrt text displayed as: ~gesperrt~




[Illustration:

  YOURS FRATERNALLY,
  MARCUS B. TONEY,

COMPANY B, CONFEDERATE VETERANS, FIRST REGIMENT STATE GUARDS,
TENNESSEE.]




  THE PRIVATIONS OF A
  PRIVATE.

  THE CAMPAIGN UNDER GEN. R. E. LEE; THE CAMPAIGN UNDER
  GEN. STONEWALL JACKSON; BRAGG’S INVASION OF KENTUCKY;
  THE CHICKAMAUGA CAMPAIGN; THE WILDERNESS
  CAMPAIGN; PRISON LIFE IN THE NORTH;
  THE PRIVATIONS OF A CITIZEN; THE KUKLUX
  KLAN; A UNITED CITIZENSHIP;
  RETROSPECTION.

  BY MARCUS B. TONEY.

  _SECOND EDITION, REVISED AND ENLARGED._

  NASHVILLE, TENN.; DALLAS, TEX.:
  PUBLISHING HOUSE OF THE M. E. CHURCH, SOUTH,
  SMITH & LAMAR, AGENTS.
  1907.




  COPYRIGHT, 1905,
  BY
  ~MARCUS B. TONEY~.




Dedicatory.


  TO THE BOYS WHO WORE THE GRAY—1861-65—AND
  BATTLED FOR THEIR CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS,
  AND REMAINED TRUE TO THE PRINCIPLES
  FOR WHICH THEY FOUGHT,
  AND TO THE MASONIC FRATERNITY,
  THIS VOLUME IS RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED BY
  THE AUTHOR.




CONTENTS.


  CHAPTER I.
                                                             PAGE

  “THE GIRL I LEFT BEHIND ME”                                   9


  CHAPTER II.

  CAMPAIGN UNDER GENERAL STONEWALL JACKSON                     27


  CHAPTER III.

  THE RETURN TO TENNESSEE                                      35


  CHAPTER IV.

  BRAGG’S INVASION OF KENTUCKY                                 39


  CHAPTER V.

  THE CHICKAMAUGA CAMPAIGN                                     56


  CHAPTER VI.

  CARRY ME BACK TO OLD VIRGINIA                                66


  CHAPTER VII.

  ON THE RAPIDAN                                               70


  CHAPTER VIII.

  THE WILDERNESS CAMPAIGN                                      72


  CHAPTER IX.

  PRISON LIFE, POINT LOOKOUT, MD.                              84


  CHAPTER X.

  PRISON LIFE AT ELMIRA, N. Y.                                 93


  CHAPTER XI.

  THE PRIVATIONS OF A CITIZEN                                 123


  CHAPTER XII.

  A UNITED CITIZENSHIP                                        130


  CHAPTER XIII.

  RETROSPECTION                                               135




THE PRIVATIONS OF A PRIVATE.




CHAPTER I.

“THE GIRL I LEFT BEHIND ME.”


The purpose of this volume is to follow the life of a Confederate
private as I lived it and saw it lived by others in the great struggle
of 1861-65. The causes leading to the Civil War are history, and need
not be enumerated here, except to say that our New England cousins
first engaged in the African slave trade, but, finding their labor not
profitable in that section, sold their slaves to the Southern people,
and a few years afterwards looked upon the institution as horrible and
the Southern people as barbarians. Their continued onslaught against it
caused the separation of the Methodist Church, and we of the Southern
branch have been known as the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. Many
of the older people of that date predicted that the agitation of the
question would lead to the secession of the Southern states, which they
thought would be done peaceably. In their fight against slavery in the
South the abolitionists vilified and abused the Southern people; their
school primers were illustrated with pictures of Southern farmers with
whip in hand chastising brutally the poor blacks. The book written
by Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe and the drama therefrom, “Uncle Tom’s
Cabin,” were a libel upon the Southern people; yet they served their
purpose in inflaming the minds of the people North and prejudicing
the South against the North. Mrs. Stowe may have visited a Southern
plantation in which, the owner being absent, the overseer may have
treated some of the slaves in a cruel manner; but this would have been
an isolated case, and not representing the Southern people as a class.
Mrs. Stowe could have said she had visited the Southern plantations
and was surprised to see such a degree of harmony as existed between
master and servant, maid and mistress, who were living as one great
family in peace and harmony; that the master and servant had grown up
boys together, that the young servant had attended his young master to
school, and that they had played together the games common to young
people of that day; and that the maid had attended the mistress from
girlhood to womanhood, and there existed a mutual confidence between
them; and there was the old black mammy who had nurtured the young
master and mistress from her breasts, nursed them in her arms, and
sang them to sleep many a night with her plaintive and sweet lullaby.
Mrs. Stowe could have gone to black mammy’s and Uncle Tom’s cabin and
said she was surprised with what neatness it was kept, and that the
table was supplied from the products of the farm and old master’s
larder, and that the black folks dressed about as well as the whites,
and that on Sunday Uncle Tom put on broadcloth and high silk hat and
was better dressed than old master. After supper Mrs. Stowe could have
seen Uncle Tom take down his banjo and play “Billy in the Low Grounds”
and “Arkansas Traveler,” while the young pickaninnies danced around
him. Mrs. Stowe could have gone up to the mistress’s room of the old
plantation, and there have seen two old-fashioned wooden cradles, one
on each side of the bed, the one containing the white the other the
black baby; not that the blacks did not have time to attend to their
offspring, but they would neglect them.

I will say here that my black mammy did not have the affection for her
children that she displayed toward me. Next to my own mother, black
mammy was as gentle to me; but with her own children I have seen her
manifest an ungovernable temper, and twice in my boyhood I have seen my
father take her children from her and say: “That child has been whipped
enough!”

Mrs. Stowe could have visited our jails and penitentiaries and wondered
why there were so few black prisoners; she could have been told that
the blacks were imprisoned for murder and arson only, that for petty
crimes the master was responsible and stood between the law and the
slave; that they were not allowed to prowl after night without a pass
from the master, or the patrol would get them; hence the slaves kept
regular hours, which was beneficial to them.

Mrs. Stowe could have said that in some Southern states she found the
whipping-post where, after being tied and their clothing stripped to
the waist, the whites and blacks were given nine and thirty lashes for
petty crimes. Of course this was severe punishment to both whites and
blacks, but in those days it was not considered more cruel than prison
walls.

Mrs. Stowe could next have visited the asylums for the insane, and
reported them full of whites, but she was struck with the absence of
the blacks. The superintendent could have said to her: “Why should we
have any slaves here? They have nothing to worry them, they are not
troubled about finance or the business affairs of the world; old master
supplies their every want, looks after all their families, clothes and
feeds them, and furnishes his own physician in case of illness.”

Surely Mrs. Stowe could have said: “In all my travels I have never
seen a race happier or better satisfied with their lot—no thought of
to-morrow, what they shall eat, drink, or wherewithal be clothed. Why
should this condition of affairs be changed?”

Let us see. In 1860 I had two homes, both occupied by my negroes,
one in what was then Edgefield, opposite Nashville, and the other
near Lynchburg, Va. All my family except the blacks had crossed over
the river, and I decided to move the Lynchburg family to Edgefield,
Tenn., arriving during the heated campaign in 1860 which elected Mr.
Lincoln President. Whether or not his election was a _casus belli_,
I do not know, but I do know that the abolitionists of the North had
so outraged the feelings of the Southern people that we felt we did
not want any further affiliation with them. It is true that many of
our old people who had been reared under the shadow of the Hermitage
counseled against secession, and hoped that some compromise would be
effected and the Union preserved; but the secession of South Carolina
and the firing on Fort Sumter banished all their hopes, and war was
inevitable, especially after President Lincoln called for 75,000 and
then 300,000 troops to coerce the Southern states, as under our idea
of state rights at that time each state should have been allowed to
depart in peace; but such was not the case. The old Volunteer State was
expected to do her duty, and the Governor’s call met a hearty response,
and the enlisting began in April, 1861. The young ladies were as
enthusiastic as the young men; and if they found a fellow lukewarm, he
was threatened with a petticoat and was not allowed to hang up his hat
in their father’s hall.

I thought Virginia was to be the theater of war for probably six or
eight weeks. We would have a battle in which one Southern man would
whip five Yankees with cornstalks, England would intervene, peace would
be declared, and we should return home finding all our servants smiling
at our home-coming. Vain thought! Four years and three months I was
absent, and found no home on my return. The slaves were all free, but
morally and financially in a much worse state than when I left them.
Oh, if we could have had a Roosevelt across the water! But all the
nations stood aloof and said, “Sick ’em, and may the heaviest guns and
largest forces win!” There was too much revenue in war for some people
to want it stopped.

I thought the first regiment enrolled would reach the seat of war
early; and as the Rock City Guards, A, B, and C, were organized before
the war, I enlisted in Company B, in which there were one hundred and
four members, commanded by Captain James B. Craighead. We drilled in
Edgefield and on the Square from April 15 to May 10, 1861, when we were
mustered into the regiment, containing nearly one thousand men. Our
line extended across the Square. We elected as Colonel George Maney.
We were sent for a few days to Camp Harris (named for Governor Isham
G. Harris), on Elk River, near Estill Springs. While many of the young
men of the South were adepts in the use of arms, we were novices as to
cooking and washing. We knew that water and flour mixed made batter,
and we knew that meat when fried made gravy; so with this much of the
art acquired, we had fried dough, or what the boys called flapjacks. As
to the washing—well, let that pass.

Instead of leaving Camp Harris for Virginia, we were returned to Camp
Cheatham, where we were put through camp life and two daily drills.
While here the young ladies from the Nashville Academy of Dr. Elliott
presented us with a regimental flag by Miss Foster. Many cases of
measles, and many fatal, took place at the camp, and the doleful
dirge of the dead march often touched our hearts. We remained at Camp
Cheatham nearly six weeks, all chafing under the delay and fearing
the war would be over before we reached Virginia. We made one trip
as a regiment to Goodlettsville, June 22, to vote Tennessee out of
the Union. Soon thereafter we folded our tents and took the train for
Nashville, where we stopped a few hours and bivouacked on the lawn in
front of the Nashville Academy, where some three hundred young ladies
of the city gave us a luncheon and assembled to say good-by.

I will say right here that nothing shall be written by me that will
encourage young men to go to war. I would rather discourage, because
nothing in it tends to elevate the young. Separate men from home
influences and from the refining contact of female society, and they
degenerate very rapidly. I don’t suppose ten per cent. of the young
men who go to war maintain their integrity. This is my opinion after
careful study. I will say further that we left Nashville with as good a
lot of boys as ever went to the front.

After luncheon we fell in and marched to the N. and C. depot to the
tune of “The Girl I Left Behind Me.” I was too young to be leaving a
girl behind me; so I marched out with light step and joyous heart,
not dreaming of the shock of battle, the roar of cannon, the hissing
of bullets, and the groans of the wounded and dying. I looked to the
right as we were passing the girls, and saw tears gathering in many
eyes, for from the intuition of womanhood they knew that war meant
death and destruction, and that many of the boys going to the front
would fill soldiers’ graves; and such was the case, for Company B lost
seventy-one—only thirty-two reached home alive. It was only a short
march to the N. and C. depot; in those days the N. and C. was spelled
with small letters; now it is Nashville, Chattanooga, and St. Louis
Railway. In those days we had small engines, after the pattern of the
“General,” with wood-burner furnace and big smokestack; we had ten box
cars of 16,000 pounds capacity, and our speed was some fifteen miles
an hour; now we have engines, as 251, 252, of nearly ninety tons, and
developing a speed of sixty miles an hour with ten cars, including the
coaches and Pullman sleepers.

In those days the N. and C. Railway track was on stringers instead of
cross ties. The rails were laid on these stringers, and were flat like
bar iron, and were nailed to the stringers, as they were too thin to
use spikes. Sometimes the nails would draw out, and the end of a rail
fly up, tearing up coaches. In those days the box cars were small,
and 16,000 pounds was the maximum. Into these box cars we climbed and
stood as thick as pins in a pincushion. When a fellow got tired of
standing, he could climb to the top of the car, lie flat like a lizard,
and hold on to the running board. About every fifteen miles we had to
wood and water, and in order to rest themselves many of the boys would
crawl down and spread out on the ground. In those days the passenger
coaches were small, with little panes of glass; and in order to see
out, one would have to raise the window. The N. and C. had one train
from Atlanta to Nashville called the “owl train”—_out owl night_—left
Nashville at 8 A.M., and arrived in Atlanta next morning at eight
o’clock.

We reached Knoxville in two days, and much to our surprise went into
camp just north of the railroad track and in quite thick woods.
Knoxville was a small town in 1861, and had no houses north of the
railroad. Now she has nearly a city north of the railroad, and she has
crowded herself across the Tennessee River. It was while here that
we heard that up in Parson Brownlow’s home was a United States flag
unfurled to the breeze, and some daring soldier said it should not
flaunt, and went up to take it down; but Miss Brownlow, with pistol in
hand, said: “The man that touches that flag will die!” Of course the
Southern soldier did not die, as he had too much respect for the lady
to disturb her flag. Miss Brownlow afterwards married my friend H. M.
Aiken, and I had the pleasure of meeting her a few years ago, but said
to her that I was not the soldier that went after the flag.

After a few days in Knoxville we boarded the train and went as far
as Johnson City, where again we went into camp. Why those continuous
delays I have never been able to find out, and my readers can imagine
how we chafed under the delay, as the armies were gathering around
Manassas for battle. We fussed and fumed for a few days, when the rush
order came to run with all speed to Manassas. We sped the best we
could; but when we reached Lynchburg, Va., the battle had been fought
and won, many of the wounded had been brought to Lynchburg, and this
was our first sight of the bloody war. The first wounded man I saw
was Hon. H. A. Edmondson, of Roanoke, Va., who was a brother of John
K. Edmondson, before the war sheriff of Davidson county, Tenn. Having
nothing to do, we were held at Lynchburg, the City of Hills; and as we
bivouacked near Black Water Creek on a steep hill, we had no use for
a pillow, but if a soldier got crossways the hill he had a chance of
rolling into the creek, far below.

While our troops had such success at Manassas, General Garnett had
been killed at Rich Mountain. General Lee had been appointed to
command the Department of West Virginia, and hitherward we were
ordered; so we boarded the train for Millboro, Va., and stopped a few
days at Staunton, where we met many of General Garnett’s soldiers,
and they were in a bad plight, many of them without shoes and with
stone bruises on their heels. In a few days we were on the train for
Millboro, where we disembarked after some eight hours’ ride. Our
destination was Cheat Mountain, some eighty miles from the railroad.

[Illustration: PRIVATE HENRY H. COOK.]

This was our first march fully equipped. Besides our gun, knapsack,
haversack, and cartridge box, nearly all our boys had on one side a
six-shooter Colt’s revolver buckled around them, and on the other side
was a large Damascus blade (made at a blacksmith’s shop). This too
had a scabbard and belt. The accompanying picture of Private Henry H.
Cook, of Franklin, Tenn., will give my readers a full knowledge of the
uniform and accouterments, as Henry (now Judge Cook) had it taken just
before leaving home, and his Company (D, Williamson Grays) was next
to mine on the march. In Henry Cook’s hand can be seen a small book.
This is the pocket edition of the New Testament, which, when through
with the picture, he placed in his knapsack. Each one of us was given
a New Testament by our chaplain, Dr. Quintard, and on the fly leaf was
written: “God is our sun and shield.” We thought that “thrice armed is
he who is armed with the word of truth.”

From Millboro to Warm Springs, the first day’s march, was fifteen
miles, twelve of which were a gradual ascent. After we had trudged
along some five miles in a sweltering August sun, I tried to give my
six-shooter away, but could not find any one to accept it, and over
in the bushes I threw it. I then unbuckled my Damascus blade, made
an offer of that, but was likewise refused, and it was thrown into
the bushes. I then tried to give away a blanket, but no one would
accept, so away it went. I thought, probably, the war would end before
the winter. By the time we reached the summit of the mountain nearly
all the men in the regiment had disposed of their extra appendages
by leaving them in the bushes. Looking down from the crest of the
mountain, we could see in the valley, three miles distant, the hotels
and cottages of Warm Springs. The descent to the springs was easy
compared with the struggle up. Reaching the springs, we found a large
bathing pool into which, from an iron pipe, the apparently cool water
was gushing. Our men being thirsty, they crowded around the springs,
and the first one to get a drink yelled out: “It is as hot as h—ll!”
Of course the water was not cool, for it was one of the warm springs,
known for its curative properties. Near by, however, was a spring so
cold that one of the men said that it had ice in it. The next day
we marched toward Valley Mountain, and in the evening heard immense
cheering in our rear, the sound gradually coming toward the front;
and looking around, we saw the cause. Sitting on “Traveler,” clad in
fatigue cap and jacket, and polished sword dangling from his side,
with cap in hand as we gave a rousing cheer, rode General R. E. Lee,
the pride of the Confederate army. At that time General Lee did not
wear any chin whiskers; he had a large, dark mustache sprinkled with
a little gray. He was the very picture of a magnificent general and
horseman.

The third day from the Springs we pitched our tents near Valley
Mountain, and then came the rain every day for some ten days, putting
the roads in very bad condition. We were nearly sixty miles from the
railroad, and a two-horse wagon could haul only some four barrels of
flour, so with an army of about ten thousand men to feed it was a
difficult problem. Our rations consisted of two small biscuits for
breakfast and a like amount for supper. However, the country afforded
some cattle as fine as I ever saw. They were very fat; and if we did
not get enough bread and beef, we filled up on tallow. We had also some
fine blackberries, which were as large as if they had been cultivated.
One day I denied myself the usual two biscuits for breakfast, saved the
dough, and had blackberry pies without any sugar for dinner.

We had not been in Valley Mountain very long till one night after
nine o’clock taps the long roll sounded and we sprang to arms and took
up our march toward Mingo Flats. The night was as black as Egyptian
darkness. We crossed ravines and waded streams; and finally toward
daylight, wet and weary, my regiment halted near an old stable. It
would accommodate only a few, and the rest of us made a bed in the long
dewy grass and got a few hours’ sleep. The long roll seemed to be a
false alarm, and after daylight we marched back to camp very tired and
hungry, and without seeing a bluecoat.

One day I had been on picket duty near Mingo Flats, and on my return to
camp in the evening I passed near General Lee’s headquarters. There was
a spring near by where I knelt to drink. General Lee hailed me: “Don’t
drink out of that spring; my horse uses it. Come and drink out of this
spring near my tent.” Out of deference to the General’s request, I went
up and drank of the spring; and as I passed him sitting on a camp stool
I threw my hand to gun, palm extended, which is a private’s salute to
a general. General Lee returned it with the salute of the hand from
the brow, which is a general’s salute to a private. I mention this
incident to show General Lee’s regard for the private soldier. It made
no difference to him whether a man wore the stripes of a private or the
insignia of a major general: he had respect for the one and respect and
consideration for the other.

Twenty miles from Valley Mountain was a road running from Beverly,
Va., on the Baltimore and Ohio, to Staunton, crossing Cheat Mountain
at a place on the mountain called Cheat Pass. It was General Lee’s
object of this expedition to dislodge and destroy the enemy at this
place. The fort at the pass was garrisoned by some three thousand
men, while at Beverly they had some eight thousand men. Besides the
fortifications on the mountain, the enemy had felled large trees
outward from the fort and trimmed off the limbs and sharpened the many
ends, so with a gun and knapsack and without an enemy in sight it
would not be an easy matter to crawl through these obstructions to the
fort. The plan of the attack was for General Rusk with his Arkansas
brigade to cross Greenbrier River, which flowed near the base of the
mountain, and assault the fort in front, while General Lee’s troops
should take it in the rear. September 12, 1861, at 9 A.M. was the
hour, and the guns from General Rusk’s brigade were to be the signal
for our moving. We left Valley Mountain on the morning of September
10, with three days’ (scant) rations. We marched on the valley road
a while, and then commenced the ascent of Cheat Mountain. Our force
for this expedition consisted of the First, Seventh, and Fourteenth
Tennessee Regiments commanded respectively by Colonels Maney, Hatton,
and Forbes, with General S. R. Anderson as brigadier. The other troops,
commanded by Generals Donelson and Loring, moved down the valley road
near the base of the mountain. My brigade was to get in the rear of the
fortifications and cut off any reenforcements that might come. When
we reached the crest of Cheat Mountain I saw the roughest and wildest
country that I ever beheld, and we were to traverse it for twenty
miles. The mountain was cut up into peaks and crags. Of course we had
to march in single file, and our brigade stretched out some three
miles. General Lee and our commanders were in advance, and any command
from them was passed back from the front man to the next in the rear,
and so to the end of the line. We received and passed back many a time:
“Keep quiet, keep well closed up.” It was impossible to keep closed up;
sometimes my leader would be thirty feet ahead of me, while I would be
struggling over a huge bowlder or trying to crawl up the mountain by
the aid of a sapling. The night of September 11 we bivouacked on top
of the mountain only a few miles from the enemy’s fortifications. It
was about the roughest place I ever saw, and on account of the many
rocks it was difficult to find a place for a spread. My comrade, George
Keeling, was a delicate young man, and I carried his blanket, and after
scraping off a lot of stones I spread George’s blanket down, and we
bunked together, covering with my blanket. Soon after we had retired
it commenced to rain, and all night we had a continuous downpour. We
not only got thoroughly wet, but our rations of biscuits washed into
dough. Next morning I had a hard time carrying two wet blankets. We
were in line early, and took up our march, and soon formed in line of
battle on the Huttonville road, not far from the fortifications. In
marching single file to the road, a bridle path crossed our line, and
up this path, riding a magnificent horse, came a lieutenant of the
Federal army. He appeared in a deep study, and came near riding into
our line. We commanded “Halt”; and he looked up and said, “Did you
men come from the clouds?” He was Lieutenant Merrill, of the Engineer
Corps. He was en route to the fort, but he was our prisoner. While we
were in line on the road General Lee received a message from General
Rusk saying: “Greenbrier River is at flood height; could not cross.” We
then received orders to return to camp, but before we moved the enemy
fired into us from ambuscade, killing three and wounding eight of our
regiment. We had no litters with us, and had to carry the wounded down
the steep mountain side in blankets, four men to a blanket; and a new
detail had to be made very often, as a man’s fingers would cramp, and
we would put the poor soldier down on the ground and change hands. On
reaching the valley we had to carry the wounded some distance before
we reached a farmhouse, and there we had to leave them and return to
Valley Mountain, after falling in line several times on report that the
enemy was following us. When we reached the camp at Valley Mountain we
were in a bad plight, very hungry, and many of us barefoot. I was not
quite barefoot, as I had one foot shod, the other bare. This campaign
developed much measles and typhoid fever, and we filled the hotels at
Warm Springs. Miss Jane Thomas and Miss Lavinia Taylor came out from
Nashville to nurse the sick, and our boys ever remembered their kind
ministrations.

General Rosecrans had commenced to invade Virginia via Charleston,
and we received orders to meet his advance. On September 25, 1861, we
took up our line of march for Big Sewell Mountain, some one hundred
miles distant, and we made good mileage considering the downpour of
rain we passed through. We reached Big Sewell Mountain September 30,
and could plainly see the tents of General Rosecrans’s army. On the
night of October 3 we received orders to have our guns cleaned and in
shape for the following morning; so we were up at half past three on
the morning of October 4, and were ready to meet the enemy, as our
information was that they were to attack us in the early morning;
but we were disappointed. Upon looking over where the tents were the
previous evening, we saw nothing of them. General Rosecrans had fallen
back in the direction of Charleston. We started after him, but the road
was in such a bad condition that we had to return to our camp in an old
field on Big Sewell Mountain. We moved off the mountain October 11, and
remained near by till October 22; we were then ordered to Huntersville,
Va., where we remained till November 19, when we moved our camp on the
Monterey road. As the weather was getting quite cold, it was decided to
build winter quarters, and each mess vied with the others as to which
could build the best cabin. But there were to be no winter quarters
for us. Before the quarters were all completed we received orders to
join General Stonewall Jackson at Winchester, Va., about two hundred
and seventy-five miles distant; so on December 11 we took up our march
at 10 A.M., and we moved to Gatewood, ten miles distant. We passed
Warm Springs on the morning of the 13th, and on to Harrisonburg in a
few days, and we were in the beautiful Shenandoah. On this march we
had reveille before daylight, and soon after sunup we had eaten our
breakfast, put a couple of biscuits in our haversack for dinner, and
we would get into camp before sundown and soon have our supper. The
First Tennessee Regiment had a splendid band, and as we marched through
the beautiful towns of Bridgewater, Newmarket, etc., we would line up,
get in step, and have “music by the band”; and the ladies would come
out of the residences, lean on the front gates, and cheer us on our
way. We reached the quaint old German town of Strasburg on Christmas
Day; and if there was any whisky or eggnog left in that town, I did not
know it. Between Strasburg and Winchester we saw many locomotives being
hauled along the turnpike. General Jackson had captured them from the
Baltimore and Ohio Railway at Martinsville. On December 26 we went into
camp near Winchester on the Romney road.




CHAPTER II.

CAMPAIGN UNDER GENERAL STONEWALL JACKSON.


The object of the expedition we were about to make was to drive from
Virginia General W. S. Hancock’s forces, which had crossed the Potomac
on pontoon at Sir John’s Run and taken up their camp at Berkeley
Springs, not far from the Potomac. General Jackson’s plan was to pass
General Hancock’s right flank, get in his rear between the army and
the Potomac, and kill or capture as many as he could. His plans were
similar to the Chancellorsville movement, but we shall see that the
weather knocked us out. We struck tents at 8 A.M. Wednesday, January
1, 1862, and the wind struck a good many of them, blowing them down
before we had a chance to draw the pegs. It was a blustery day, but not
very cold. We moved eight miles to Pughtown, and bivouacked there. On
the morning of January 2 reveille sounded at five o’clock, and before
daylight we were on the move, but made little headway, as the weather
had turned intensely cold, with a light snow. If a man was at the head
of the column he was all right; but after a few companies had passed
over, the snow became as slick as ice, and skating would have been good
if a fellow had had skates. I bivouacked on three cedar rails and built
a rail fire on each side, and the red cedar popped sparks on the cape
of my overcoat, and when I woke up I was afire.

Colonel Maney said that he thought we would get in the fight the next
day. We were ordered to cook up all our rations. On the morning of the
4th we were formed in line and each man supplied with forty rounds of
cartridges. We marched thirteen miles and reached a point three miles
from Bath, or Berkeley Springs, and camped in the woods. It snowed
heavily that night, and was extremely cold. There was little sleep
for us. On the morning of the 5th we moved on Bath, and as we formed
a line a short distance from the town, which was situated on a hill
of considerable proportions, the enemy’s battery opened fire upon us.
General Stonewall Jackson rode upon Old Sorrel. The General wore a
skull cap, a blouse, gray jacket, and the reins hung loosely on Old
Sorrel’s neck; he looked more like a plow horse than a war steed. With
a twinkle in his eye General Jackson said to Colonel Maney: “Colonel
Maney, I want the Virginians [alluding to his old regiment] to take
that battery. They have had some rations since your men.” We yelled
out: “General, we do not want any rations; let us capture the battery.”
General Jackson replied: “Colonel Maney, move your regiment by
companies to the right.” We made a gallant charge, but when we reached
the guns only two of the enemy were in sight. It was a feint to cover
General Hancock’s retreat across the Potomac on his pontoon, but he
could have crossed on the ice, as it was nearly twelve inches thick.

While we moved to the capture of the battery Turner Ashby with his
black horse cavalry charged into the town, capturing a few prisoners.
It was an inspiring sight—the black horses of Ashby charging down the
valley. We captured some rations, which we devoured in short order.
The next day (Sunday) we moved six miles from Bath, and took up our
position opposite Hancock, Md., a beautiful little town on the mountain
side, and General Hancock had occupied the town; but alas! the Potomac
River separated us, and it was filled with floating ice. The next
day about 9 A.M. General Jackson sent a courier across the river. We
watched the horse struggling through the floating ice, and cheered
as it brought the rider safely to the other side. General Jackson’s
order was to move the noncombatants out of town, as he would commence
to bombard at 12 M. At the hour named our batteries opened up a brisk
fire, and General Hancock rushed some batteries behind the Methodist
church and replied furiously. At intervals the dueling was kept up
into the night, and it was a grand sight to see the solid shot moving
as balls of fire. During a part of the cannonading in the daytime I
stood near General Jackson and Colonel Robert Hatton, of the Seventh
Tennessee. Both sat upon their horses as immovable as statues. It was
said of General Jackson that he was a predestinarian. The Presbyterian
boys might have explained the meaning of the term. It was also said
that he was a fatalist. This was a term that I think would have been
difficult for any of the boys to explain. I believe, however, that
General Stonewall Jackson had that faith in God that lifted him above
the field of battle, and, living or dying, he was the Lord’s; then
why should he be disturbed by the roar of cannon or the bursting of
shells? That night a detail was to be made to picket the Potomac,
with orders not to light any fires, because the enemy might fire at us
from the opposite bank. Sergeant J. W. Carter, of Company B, commenced
near the head of the roster for a detail, and many of the boys were
sick. Captain Patterson said: “I cannot excuse any more; the sick
must go to Dr. Buist and get an excuse.” The roll call was continued,
and I was a long way down the list; yet my name was reached, and I
answered: “Am always on hand.” Captain Patterson turned to Sergeant
Carter and said: “How many roll calls has Toney missed since leaving
Big Sewell Mountain?” He replied: “Seventeen.” Captain Patterson said:
“To-night’s duty on picket wipes them all out.” Gallant, chivalrous
John S. Patterson, how I loved him! He was as gentle and modest as
a woman. How my heart ached when I buried him the following October
at Perryville, Ky.! In regard to the missing of roll call, I never
regarded it as a dereliction of duty, therefore on the march from
Sewell Mountain frequently when roll was called I was off foraging. In
army parlance foraging was to send one of the mess out to buy something
to eat, provided he had the money; if he did not have the money, he
was to _take_ the food. It was related of two comrades who lived near
Murfreesboro, and who were sent out by their mess with one dollar to
purchase supplies, that they returned with five cents’ worth of bread
and ninety-five cents’ worth of whisky, and those that liked to imbibe
complained of the purchase of so much bread. In regard to the roll
call, it is a breach of duty to neglect when any service is to be
performed, because it puts an extra and more frequent burden on your
comrades. If I had used the army parlance term, and said “stood picket”
that night, I should have missed it. I ran picket for four hours around
and around a big tree; I had to do it to keep from freezing. I did not
have anything to eat the previous day but some raw corn taken from
artillery horses, and chewed the sprigs of sassafras bushes.

Captain F. S. Harris told me that he had traveled in that section
much since the war, and that a citizen of Hancock, Md., had told him
that on the two nights we were there the mercury was sixteen degrees
below zero; and I do not doubt it. Many of our boys would get in that
stupor which precedes death by freezing, and we would have to seize
them roughly and keep them moving to prevent freezing. When relieved
by another detail, about 3 A.M., I crawled in under an oilcloth and
blanket and got a few hours’ sleep. A fall of snow during the latter
part of the night served to keep us warm. Looking from under the
blankets next morning, we could see many of the boys sleeping beneath
their snowy couches, which resembled graves. A detail of Company C was
made to guard the medical stores of General Jackson, which were in
wagons. The boys found in one of the wagons a cask of brandy. Getting
hold of an auger, they notified the boys in camp to have some kettles
ready. Going under the wagon, they bored through the body into the
cask, and thus filled their vessels. General Jackson relieved them from
duty, but did not punish them. I presume he thought they were excusable
under the weather conditions. We were sorely disappointed in not being
able to engage the enemy. It is true that we forced them across the
river, but they could return in a few days after we left. General
Jackson succeeded in destroying a dam in the Potomac River which fed
the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, and cut off canal communication between
Cumberland, Md., and Washington, D. C.

On the morning of January 8 reveille sounded very early, and we moved
slowly to Bath over a very slick, icy pike. The next morning there
was another early reveille; and we made only seven miles that day, on
account of the condition of the pike and blockade of wagons. On the
10th we were at Munger’s Cross Roads, awaiting orders. Sunday, January
12, Dr. Quintard preached for us.

On my way to the post-office tent to mail a letter home General S. R.
Anderson hailed me, and asked where I was going. I told him, whereupon
he reached into his pocket and gave me a letter, saying earnestly: “I
wish I could put myself into that letter and be sent home.”

On the morning of January 13 we had early reveille, struck tents, and
moved down to headquarters. Many of our boys were on the sick list, and
when we went into Winchester we had only twenty-five able-bodied men
left in Company B; and other companies were depleted in proportion. Out
of my mess of ten only two of us were ready for duty, and we had the
extra blankets of eight men. The town of Winchester was overrun with
soldiers, and all the houses were filled to overflowing.

On January 14 we started to Romney, Va., which was situated on the
bank of the beautiful south branch of the Potomac. On account of the
ice and sleet we made only a few miles. On the 13th we crossed Capon
River, and made only six miles during the day. The 16th of January we
made only nine miles, and camped within eleven miles of Romney, which
the enemy evacuated, leaving a lot of stores. On January 17 we were
within four miles, and bivouacked with the regiments of Colonels Hatton
and Forbes. Our cavalry occupied Romney, and we had nothing to do
except to go into the town and get some rations. We were given a lot of
provisions and drew quantities of butter, the first and only rations of
butter I had seen issued during the war.

I went into Romney and took dinner at a private house on January 21. I
met Major Yost, our quartermaster, and he said that he had heard that
our brigade was going to Hanging Rock, some three miles from Romney,
to winter quarters. Was the First Tennessee Regiment to go into winter
quarters? We shall see.

Friday, January 24, we moved through Romney and reached Hanging Rock,
and camped one-quarter of a mile from the Potomac. On January 25
Colonel Hatton’s regiment moved down to Suspension Bridge, and camped
near there. Some of our boys who went back to Winchester began coming
into camp on January 26. They thought we would have a fight, and did
not wish to miss it. On January 29 I crossed the south branch of the
Potomac in a skiff, and saw the residence of Colonel Washington, who
was on General Lee’s staff, and who was killed in the Cheat Mountain
campaign. Colonel Washington was the nearest living relative of General
George Washington. We got too near the enemy’s pickets, and had to
wait until nightfall to recross the river. At eleven o’clock at night
our camp was aroused by the beating of the long roll, and we tumbled
out of our tents in quick order. After the regiment was formed, my
company was detailed to picket the ford. January 31 closed a very
disagreeable week; it had snowed or hailed during the entire week.

On February 2 we had orders to be ready to move at a moment’s notice,
as the enemy were preparing to cut us off. On the 4th we moved from
camp as rapidly as the weather and the wagons would permit. On February
5 we camped one mile from Capon Bridge, and on February 7 we reached
our old camp at Winchester, which we left on January 1.

On February 8 I went into Winchester to get some clothing from
Nashville brought by Lieutenant Van Leer. I learned that my package was
lost at Manassas Junction. On February 9 we heard of the fall of Fort
Henry, and this made us fear the loss of Fort Donelson. On the 14th of
February my mess built a chimney to our tent, and we were prepared for
the six-inch snow that fell on the 15th.

Colonel Maney had been to Richmond, and had the regiment detached from
the Virginia army, and ordered returned to Tennessee to support Fort
Donelson. The fatalities of the campaign were three soldiers frozen to
death.




CHAPTER III.

THE RETURN TO TENNESSEE.


On February 19 we left Winchester, arriving at Lynchburg on the 21st.
We went into camp near that city, not knowing when we could proceed
farther, on account of many washouts between Lynchburg and Bristol.
Sunday, February 23, was a dark day for us, for we heard of the
evacuation of Nashville. On February 27 I note from my diary: “Feel a
great anxiety for the loved ones at home, but cannot get any message.”
On March 5 the railroad expected to resume traffic, but there were no
trains moving. On the morning of March 6 we started for Bristol, the
left wing of the regiment ahead of us. We reached Knoxville March 10,
and remained there until the 12th, when Colonel Maney arrived and said
that the right wing would proceed to Bridgeport, Ala., to guard the
bridge there. We were held in Knoxville until Sunday, February 23, when
we loaded baggage and proceeded to Chattanooga, where we went into camp
one mile from the city. Fred Berry, of Company B, died February 21,
at 6 P.M., and on the morning of February 22 Company B escorted his
remains to the depot for forwarding to Nashville.

We had guard, drill duty, and dress parades daily at Chattanooga. On
March 28 we heard of General Stonewall Jackson’s victory at Kernstown.
We left Chattanooga April 1 at 8 A.M., and arrived at Bridgeport at
11 A.M. and went into camp near the railroad bridge; in the meantime
the left wing of the regiment went forward to Corinth. On April 4 we
were ordered to cook three days’ rations and to leave at 9 A.M. We
boarded the train, and the order was countermanded and we disembarked
and remained in camp till April 5, when ten box cars were backed up
and we loaded at 7 A.M. These cars had been hauling bulk bacon, and
they were very greasy. We slipped and slid, but could not slide very
far, as we were packed in closely. We reached Stevenson at 8 A.M., and
remained until 1:30 P.M., April 6, when the news reached us of the
battle of Shiloh and the death of General Albert Sidney Johnston. We
did not reach Corinth until Monday, April 7, at 10 A.M. We saw a large
number of Federal prisoners, and the old Tishomingo Hotel was turned
into a hospital and filled with our wounded. General Johnston’s body
had arrived, and was in a residence near by. On the morning of April 8
we were ordered to cook five days’ rations, and on the morning of the
9th we left Corinth for the Shiloh battlefield. We met a large number
of wagons and all kinds of conveyances carrying our wounded to Corinth.
We marched over a dirt road, through swamps and water, reaching General
Breckinridge at sundown, and slept in some vacant tents that were
left by the enemy. Reveille sounded early on the morning of April 10,
and we were soon under arms. We marched by General Breckinridge’s
headquarters, were drawn up in line of battle all day, and went back to
our quarters in the evening. On Friday, April 11, it rained nearly all
day, and we stayed in our tents until 5 P.M., when we were called out
in the rain, but soon afterwards ordered back.

In camp all day April 12, and General Forrest’s cavalry scouts said
that there was no sign of the Federals south of where Shiloh was
fought, but that they were under cover of the gunboats at Pittsburg
Landing. We left Shiloh Sunday, April 13, on our way to Corinth, and
after getting lost in the woods several times reached the camp at
twelve o’clock Monday, April 14, where we found the left wing of the
regiment, and listened to the boys, who gave us a graphic picture
of the fight and regretted that we were not with them. We expected
the next battle at Corinth, and for days and weeks worked on the
fortifications and drank water the color of soapsuds. One had no
trouble to get water at Corinth: all you had to do was to shovel out a
few spadefuls of earth, and the hole would soon fill with water.

After completing out breastworks, we were expecting an attack daily
by General Grant’s forces, but were disappointed. Our pickets were
very close together, and for days there was the rattle of musketry and
hissing of bullets. The foliage was very thick, and frequently men
would be shot from guns held by soldiers up in the trees. Often we had
to crawl out to relieve the pickets. One of our men was shot as he
poked his head around a tree.

On May 30 the enemy moved as if to flank us, and on May 31 we were en
route to Tupelo, Miss. The Federal cavalry dashed around our army near
Guntown and fired a train of ammunition, and the explosions could be
heard for some distance. We reached Tupelo June 10, and went into camp
there. We had the regular routine drill twice a day and dress parade in
the evening. We remained in Tupelo until July 20; and learning that the
Federals were withdrawing their troops from Corinth toward Nashville,
it was decided by our authorities to invade Kentucky.




CHAPTER IV.

BRAGG’S INVASION OF KENTUCKY.


Our army was moved to Chattanooga, Tenn., by two routes: one by Selma,
the other by Mobile. We went by train to Mobile, and there embarked on
the side-wheel steamer _Dixie_, and were three days and nights reaching
Montgomery, Ala., where we camped a few days, and then went by train to
Atlanta, thence to Chattanooga. While we were on the Alabama River near
Selma our boat landed for wood, and the boys spied a watermelon patch,
and in a few moments the entire crop, green or ripe, had disappeared.
In the meantime the owner boarded the boat, and Colonel Fields ordered
every man to pay the farmer for the melons, and that he should be paid
for either green or ripe; and the farmer got his pay. We remained for
some days in Chattanooga, and on August 19 we were ferried across the
Tennessee River on a steamboat, and took up our line of march across
Walden’s Ridge toward Pikeville and Sparta. When we reached Sparta,
it was in ashes. Instead of proceeding to Nashville, we went to
Gainesboro, where we crossed the Cumberland River, and were on the dark
and bloody ground of Kentucky. While the march over Walden’s Ridge and
the Cumberland Mountains was a little fatiguing, they did not compare
with Cheat and other Virginia mountains. Yet we were to encounter a
march which was full of suffering, but of a variety which we were to
experience for the first time. After we left Tomkinsville, Ky., we
met a drought then prevailing in Kentucky. The dirt roads were very
dusty, and sometimes we could not see ten feet ahead. The perspiration
caused clots of mud to form in our eyebrows, hair, whiskers, and
mustaches. At nightfall when we went into camp, very little water could
be found, and frequently we drank out of the ponds in the barn lots.
How many wiggletails and tadpoles I have drunk will never be known.
When we reached Glasgow, Ky., General Buell was moving his army out
of Nashville. There was a garrison (well fortified) of four thousand
Federals at Woodsonville, a village of three or four houses opposite
Munfordville, Ky. It was General Bragg’s intention to capture this
fort before General Buell could reach there. A short time previous
to this, General Chalmers, of Mississippi, had stormed this fort and
lost twelve hundred men. Our object was to get in the rear of these
fortifications. We left Glasgow at sunrise with one day’s rations, and
marched rapidly in an easterly direction. We had some twelve thousand
men and twenty-seven pieces of artillery. In marching along the road
shaded by a lot of black-jack trees, we saw a countryman with a barrel
of water on a sled drawn by a horse. We did not ask for a drink, but in
a few moments the barrel was empty. The poor fellow said: “I have not a
drop of water at home, and my wife and children are suffering.” We felt
sorry for him, but such is war.

We crossed Green River before midnight, and about 3 A.M. we were in
Munfordville, and formed a line of battle in the suburbs of the town.
Company B was in the cemetery, and I slept until sunup with a grave
for a pillow. Our artillery had been placed in position not far from
the Louisville and Nashville bridge, and considerably higher than the
Federal fort in Woodsonville. They saw that we were in a position to
shell them out, and at sunrise up went the white flag, and we marched
four thousand prisoners out and paroled them. The advance of General
Buell’s army had reached Bowling Green; and in a few days many of
his men reached our line without guns and surrendered, saying that
they were tired of the war. After the capture we expected General
Bragg to do one of two things: either move on General Buell at Cave
City, or go to Louisville. The authorities in Louisville expected the
latter, and every able-bodied man in Louisville was called on to throw
up fortifications; but General Bragg did neither of the two things
expected, but he marched us eight miles toward Louisville and went
into camp at Bacon Creek. Next day he marched us back to Munfordville,
and then again to Bacon Creek; and one night we camped at the side of
the old stage road near Bacon Creek, and it poured rain all night.
The little sleep I got was on three rails. From Bacon Creek the army
moved through Elizabethtown, Hodgenville, New Haven, and went into
camp at Bardstown, Ky., twenty-seven miles from Louisville. While
here Governor Hawes was inaugurated Governor of the State. General
Bragg issued a proclamation calling on the Kentuckians to flock to his
standard, and we fired a few volleys from the artillery, which broke
all the glass in the windows of the courthouse. While we were in camp
at Bardstown, General Buell’s army marched to Louisville; and while
we were playing soldier and living high in the blue grass country and
losing men, General Buell was recruiting his army, and was soon ready
for an advance; and we moved to Springfield, Perryville, Danville, and
from Danville to Harrodsburg, and then back to Perryville—a forty-mile
march to no purpose, for we did not need the exercise. On the night of
October 7, 1862, we marched again through Harrodsburg and bivouacked
after midnight in the suburbs of the little town of Perryville. When we
formed in line and stacked guns for a few hours’ rest, Company B was
again in a cemetery. Was it a bad omen that twice recently our company
slept in a cemetery?

Next morning Company B moved out of the cemetery to cook one day’s
rations. Seven of my mess dipped their hands in the same skillet. They
were all stalwart men of brawny arm. That evening when the smoke of
battle lifted, five of my comrades were dead, and the sixth wounded.
Early in the morning we formed in line and moved slowly through the
town on the Harrodsburg pike, which we left some half mile beyond
Perryville, and turned to the left, crossing Chaplin Creek, or river,
as it is called there. About three o’clock we were in line of battle on
our extreme right and in a valley of the Chaplin River two and one-half
miles from Perryville. There had been some skirmishing before our
arrival, and about three o’clock the musketry and cannonading became
quite brisk, the shells falling around us as we climbed the fence in
battle line. We crossed Chaplin River, ascended a high bluff, and when
we reached the height Colonel Savage’s Sixteenth Regiment was hotly
engaged with the enemy. To uncover from Colonel Savage we had to move
by the right flank, and while executing this move some of our men were
wounded. When we uncovered, we again moved by the left flank. General
Leonidas Polk rode up and asked: “What regiment is this?” The answer
was: “The First Tennessee.” He then said: “Capture that battery.”

It was Parsons’s eight-gun battery, supported by an Ohio brigade
(Germans) in command of General Jackson, of Hopkinsville, Ky. They
would not stand the charge, but ran in great disorder, leaving the
battery in our possession. In attempting to rally them General Jackson
was killed, and his body fell in our line of march. On a hill in the
rear of where we captured the Parsons battery was Bush’s Indiana
battery, supported by the First and Twenty-first Wisconsin Regiments
and another brigade of infantry. In charging this battery we uncovered
our left flank, and were subjected to an enfilade fire from the enemy,
which played havoc with our men. We had ten men killed in attempting
to carry the colors. We lost some two hundred and fifty men in a short
time. Our boys got so close to the battery that the smoke covered
them. Young Tom Lanier was killed some thirty feet from the battery,
not by the artillery, because we were under the crest of the hill,
and the pieces could not be depressed so as to reach us, but the men
supporting the battery were the ones that caused most of our trouble.
Colonel Patterson was slightly wounded in the wrist, but he tied a
handkerchief around it and continued to give orders until a grapeshot
hit his mustache, going through his head, killing him instantly.
Captain Pilcher was quartermaster, but he was in the thickest of the
fray, receiving a wound that came near causing his death. Company B
lost fourteen killed and thirteen wounded. Among the dead was a young
man named Robert S. Hamilton. He came to Nashville in 1860, and was a
proof reader in the Southern Methodist Publishing House. We were very
intimate friends. He was an ardent secessionist, while his family in
Kentucky were divided on the war question. In the charge Robert was
shot through the forehead, and fell not far from where Tom Lanier and
gallant Jack Goodbar fell. Colonel Fields detailed me to stay and take
care of the wounded and do the best I could to bury the dead. After
getting all the wounded off, with the aid of reflected rays from a
burning barn which the exploding shells fired, I penned the following:

    BATTLEFIELD, PERRYVILLE, KY., October 8, 1862.

  _Mrs. W. C. Hamilton, Lexington, Ky._: Robert was killed in gallant
  charge this evening. Will take care of remains until you arrive.

    MARCUS B. TONEY.

Mrs. Hamilton was Robert’s sister-in-law, and I wrote to her because
his brother, W. C. Hamilton, was a Union man, and Robert never wrote
a line to him; but all his correspondence was with his sister-in-law,
and he always read her letters to me; therefore I wrote to the
sister-in-law rather than to the brother. The blue and the gray mingled
together all that night removing the wounded. I approached one of the
blue and asked him if he would deliver the note to Mrs. Hamilton, and
he promised me that he would.

It was a sad sight that night as I gazed upon the upturned, ghastly
faces of our dead; and the cries of the wounded for “water!” “water!”
“water!” were heartrending. Before daylight all of our wounded had
been brought from the field. A farmer named Goodnight, who lived some
half mile from the battlefield, had deserted his house on the eve of
battle, and we turned it into a hospital. On the second floor in the
small room were the following: J. H. Woldridge, B. P. Steele, T. H.
Maney, M. B. Pilcher, Mac Campbell, Lute Irwin, J. H. Wheless, and
Lieutenant Hammond. These eight men were my patients. Four of them were
on the bedsteads and four on the floor. Comrade Woldridge lost both of
his eyes, and Captain Pilcher, Captain Steele, Lieutenant Maney, Mac
Campbell, and Lute Irwin were all badly wounded. For three nights I did
not close my eyes in sleep.

About the third day after the battle a messenger came upstairs and
said that a lady was in waiting to see me. This was my first meeting
with Mrs. Hamilton. Mr. Hamilton was with her, and they brought a
hearse and casket, and a carryall with blankets and provisions for
our wounded. I accompanied Mr. and Mrs. Hamilton to the battlefield.
I had buried twenty-seven of the Rock City Guards in a gully near by
where they fell, and not far from the battery that they charged so
gallantly. I did not have any implement to bury with, but with the use
of a breastplate taken from the body of a dead Federal I invented a
tool which formed a kind of scoop, and with this covered our boys with
the dirt. I had buried Robert Hamilton at the head of the twenty-seven,
and when we reached the spot I raked the dirt from his face and
said: “Mrs. Hamilton, this is Robert.” “Is it possible,” she replied,
“that these are Robert’s remains?” I said: “I will soon satisfy you.”
Reaching down, I caught one of his hands, and, brushing the dirt away,
I said to her: “Do you see this?” She replied: “I am satisfied.” Robert
was a very studious young man, and in his deep studies I have seen
him bite his nails to the quick, and frequently brought blood. When
Mrs. Hamilton saw the hand and the condition of the finger nails, she
knew they were Robert’s. When the body was taken to the hospital and
prepared for burial, there was no doubt in her mind. We expected to
bury W. J. Whitthorne, of the Maury Grays, Columbia, Tenn., but the
body could not be found. He was shot through the neck, and Dr. Buist
said that he would not live until we got him to the hospital. Billy
Whitthorne, as we all called him, is living this year (1907). He raised
a company at Columbia during the Spanish-American War, and went to
the Philippines. He was elected major in the regular army, and later
lieutenant colonel of the First Tennessee National Guards, and I am
a private in Company B, Confederate Veterans, of the Guards. We had
a similar case in John Sullivan, the gallant Irishman of the Martin
Guards. His wife accompanied him to the war, and was very valuable in
assisting the boys in needlework and cooking. Sullivan had a hole in
his forehead that exposed a part of the brain. Mrs. Sullivan was at
the hospital when the fight was going on, and when we reported after
midnight that John was left on the field for dead she said that she
would go out and look after him. She was a stalwart woman, and brought
John on her shoulder to the hospital. About two weeks after that
Dr. Buist bought a carryall, placed Captain Woldridge, Mr. and Mrs.
Sullivan in it, and started them through the country to Pulaski. Near
Lebanon, Ky., they were captured and sent to prison.

A few weeks after the battle Captain Steele was removed to Harrodsburg,
and Mrs. C. H. Rochester came after Captain Pilcher, T. H. Maney, S. B.
Shearon, and myself, and we were taken to her residence, near Danville,
Ky., where we were royally entertained. Colonel Rochester and the elder
sons were in the Confederate army, leaving Mrs. Rochester and the young
ladies and boys at home. The families of Captain Merritt S. Pilcher,
George S. Kinney, and Henry C. Hensley had refugeed from Nashville to
Louisville.

Dr. Buist sent a message to Captain M. S. Pilcher saying that if Matt
were sent to prison he could not possibly survive. Captain Merritt
Pilcher had a stanch friend in Louisville, Mr. John B. Smith, who stood
very close to General Jere Boyle, commanding that district, and through
his influence we received the following:

    HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT OF KENTUCKY.
    LOUISVILLE, October 13, 1862.

  The bearers hereof, Capt. Matthew B. Pilcher and Private Marcus B.
  Toney, will be allowed to report at these headquarters without a
  guard so soon as the wound of Captain Pilcher’s will permit.

    JERE BOYLE, _General_.

We remained at Mrs. Rochester’s nearly four months, and almost
despaired of getting Captain Pilcher to Louisville. In addition to
his great suffering from the wound, a spell of pneumonia gave him a
setback. Soon after convalescing he came near bleeding to death, and I
mounted a horse and went rapidly to Harrodsburg for Dr. Buist. Finally
he recovered so far as to allow us to proceed, and he desired to go
via Lexington to visit for a few days his relatives, Mr. Hiram Shaw
and family; so we proceeded to Nicholasville by stage, and thence to
Lexington by rail. Mr. Shaw was a stanch Union man, and was a dealer in
gents’ furnishing goods. A few weeks before we reached there, General
Morgan’s men raided his store, exchanging their old headgear for his
fine hats, and some of the boys wore off his best tiles; therefore I
felt a hesitancy in going to the Shaw domicile. But we were treated
in a most generous manner. A few nights after reaching there, we paid
a visit to another family of the Shaws, where there were three young
ladies. General J. Q. A. Gilmore was a visitor, and he asked one of
the ladies who we were. She informed him, and the next day we received
orders to report to General Gilmore’s headquarters. Accordingly we did
so, and he said in a very brusque manner: “I wish to know by whose
authority you Rebels are free.” I replied, “By authority of General
Jere Boyle, of Louisville”; and I placed our parole in his hands. He
glanced over it, and said: “This is not General Boyle’s district; I am
commanding here, and my name is General J. Q. A. Gilmore. You will get
ready to go to Louisville with a guard this evening. Report here at
three o’clock.” I said: “All right, General Gilmore. Your order will be
obeyed, but we were ignorant of the infringement on your territory.”
At 3 P.M. we were there, and so was the guard with his gun. We wired
Captain Pilcher that we would be in about 8 P.M., under guard. When we
reached Frankfort, we found that the railroad bridge had been burned,
and we had to cross on the ferry. In going through the city many ladies
turned out and escorted us to the ferry. When we reached Louisville,
Captain Meritt S. Pilcher was pacing up and down the platform, and
appeared more disturbed than we were. After greeting us, he said:
“Boys, I have been trying all day to see General Boyle; but one of
his children has smallpox, and he is at home. The officer of the day
says he cannot release you, and you will have to go to prison at Tenth
and Broadway.” We could do nothing but obey. When we reached the pen
we found there four hundred prisoners who had been captured at Fort
Donelson. It was quite a filthy place, without sleeping accommodations.
We had some salt pork, stale bread, and coffee without sugar. As we
had been living for four months on the fat of the blue grass region,
we could not eat the prison diet, and were glad to hear our names
called at the wicket about nine o’clock next morning, where we signed
parole to the National Hotel; and when we reached the sidewalk we
found Captain Pilcher and Mr. John B. Smith with a carriage, and they
escorted us to the hotel. We remained at the hotel for six weeks,
waiting for the flag-of-truce boat for exchange. After the first week’s
confinement at the hotel, General Boyle extended our parole so as
to allow us to attend church on Sunday, and we first went to Sunday
school and then went to services at 11 A.M. Sometimes we went to hear
the big gun of the Baptist Church, Dr. Lorimer, and then to hear Dr.
Craik, of the Episcopal Church, and at 3 P.M. we attended vespers at
the Cathedral, and at night church again. One Sunday morning in Dr.
Lorimer’s church Captain Pilcher was asked to teach the Bible class,
and in the class were some of the boys in blue. The Southern people in
Louisville treated us with much consideration and kindness, and the
people who differed with us on the war issue treated us with respect.
In the churches and on the streets we were frequently detained for hand
shakes. We wore Confederate uniforms, but General Boyle requested that
the brass buttons be covered. The Southern ladies visited us frequently
at the hotel, and we returned many of the visits at their residences on
Sunday. I recall these names among those who were exceedingly kind to
us: Miss Fanny Jack, Miss Kate Quarrier, Miss Mary Miller, Miss Anna
Caldwell, Miss Nina Smith (who after the war married Mr. H. Victor
Newcomb, and later Mr. Ten Broeck). Captain Pilcher and myself did not
indulge in wine, so we were much amused to receive from Miss Fanny
Jack a bottle of wine with this toast: “Believe that in every drop of
wine contained in this bottle is _mingled_ a heartfelt prayer for the
_ultimate_ success of the Southern Confederacy.” Evidently it was the
toast which Miss Fanny wished us to enjoy rather than the wine. So the
time drew near when we were to journey to Fortress Monroe for exchange
at City Point, and Mr. John B. Smith called on General Boyle for an
order to proceed without a guard. General Boyle said that he could
favor us only as far as Cincinnati, and gave us the following:

    HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT OF KENTUCKY,
    LOUISVILLE, April 9, 1863.

  _General Ambrose E. Burnside, Cincinnati, Ohio_: Capt. M. B. Pilcher
  and Private M. B. Toney have been on parole from these headquarters
  since the battle of Perryville, and have faithfully kept it. I will
  therefore be obliged if you will allow them to proceed to Fortress
  Monroe without a guard.

    JERE BOYLE,
    _General Commanding Department of Kentucky_.

Armed with this document and escorted by a large number of friends, we
proceeded to board the steamer _General Lytle_. One of the ladies had
purchased for me a large silk handkerchief. It was plain on one side,
but on the other was the bonnie blue flag, and as the _General Lytle_
steamed out from the levee Captain Pilcher and I were on the hurricane
roof, and I unfurled my banner to the breeze, and received the cheers
from the assembled multitude on the levee. We stopped at the Burnett
House. Next morning at breakfast I said to Captain Pilcher: “There is
General Burnside.” He was sitting two tables from us. General Burnside
at that time was trying Mr. Vallandigham for treason, and banished him
through our lines at Shelbyville. I agreed with Captain Pilcher not
to report as yet to General Burnside, because there were some friends
in Covington whom we wished to meet, and did meet in our room at the
hotel; and they got into such a boisterous discussion that one of
them said: “Hush, boys; walls have ears.” When we reported to General
Burnside with General Boyle’s letter, I noticed his brows contract, and
he looked at us fiercely and said in a very abrupt manner: “This is a
very peculiar request from General Boyle, and one entirely contrary to
War Department orders. _I cannot grant it._” I replied: “Very well,
General; do with us as you will, as we are subject to your orders.” He
thought a while and said: “I will do this: place you in charge of a
lieutenant with his side arms. That will be better than going with a
soldier and gun over you. Report here at six o’clock to take the train
for Baltimore.” We reported at six o’clock, and met the lieutenant,
whom we found to be a nice gentleman and very companionable. We arrived
in Baltimore and registered at the Barnum Hotel. After supper we
retired early.

The next morning the lieutenant, after a visit to the provost marshal’s
office, said that the flag-of-truce boat would not sail for several
days, and that they had smallpox very bad there. He said that we would
remain in Baltimore. After breakfast he said: “Boys, I am going to
see the city. I know you do not wish to go with me, and I don’t care
to stay with you. If you are arrested, tell them to wait till I come
with the papers.” Captain Pilcher and I had a letter to Noah Walker,
wholesale clothier, and we started to his store, but had gone only two
squares when we were arrested as spies. We told the detective that we
were under orders for exchange, and under the control of a lieutenant
of the United States Army, and if he did not believe our story he could
accompany us to the hotel, which he did, and waited several hours. When
our lieutenant returned he was very angry, and cursed and abused the
detective severely. Next morning I said: “Lieutenant, we want to call
at Noah Walker’s. We wish you would go with us to the door, where you
can leave us and resume your sight-seeing.” So he did. We presented
our letter to Mr. Walker, and had a pleasant chat with him. He inquired
especially after his friends in Louisville. When we arose to take our
leave, he said: “Boys, wait a while. Come this way.” We followed him
up four flights of stairs. Coming to the fifth story, he unlocked a
door and we entered another narrow flight of stairs; he locked the
door on the inside, and put the key in his pocket. When we reached the
head of the stairs, we found a large stock of Confederate uniforms.
He said: “Mum is the word. I am running the blockade with these; and
if it were known by the Federal authorities, my entire stock would be
confiscated.” We told him that our lips would be sealed. He said: “I
did not bring you up here for a display, but I want each of you boys to
select an overcoat.” We did so, and he sent them to the hotel. The next
morning we took passage on the Bay Line steamer for Fortress Monroe.
Just after leaving Baltimore I saw a commotion in the ladies’ cabin,
and heard the word “Rebel” uttered excitedly. Presently the captain
came to us and said: “Boys, I have an old lady aboard who is a regular
virago. She says that she does not want to travel on the same boat with
Rebels. I told her that you had paid first-class fare and were entitled
to cabin-fare passage, but that doesn’t quiet her. She is creating a
terrible furor with the passengers. I wish you would go down on the
deck. I will send your supper to you, the best we have on the table,
and after supper I will bring you up to your stateroom.”

The captain was a Baltimorean and a Southern sympathizer, and to
accommodate him we went below till after the old lady retired, when
we turned in to dream of the flag of truce. I hope the old lady has
reached that land where there are no Rebels to molest or make her
afraid.

When we awoke next morning, we were landed near the truce boat. The
lieutenant took a receipt for us from the exchange officer, and bade
us good-by as if he were sad in leaving us. I am sure we were sorry to
give him up, as he was exceedingly kind to us. I wish that I had kept
his name. We asked to be remembered to General Burnside for sending
such a clever officer with us. Soon after boarding the truce boat we
were sailing up the historic James River. The next morning we landed at
City Point, where a like number of Federals were to be exchanged for
us. Many cases of smallpox were on the lower deck of our truce boat,
and it was difficult to get help to unload. Finally the captain said
that if they were not removed he would take them back, so I volunteered
to carry the patients off.

The exchange officer said that he would have to separate the officers
and privates and send us to our commands in that manner. He was
rather brusque in his order, which irritated us. Captain Pilcher
said: “We have been in the hands of the enemy for six months. They
not only would not allow us to be separated, but treated us in a more
respectful manner than you have.” This appeared to put a quietus on the
officer, and he allowed us to proceed together, which we did as far
as Knoxville, when we separated on account of the following accident.
About fifteen miles west of Bristol, at three o’clock in the morning,
Captain Pilcher and I, with a lot of soldiers, were in the rear car,
when a brake beam broke and fell in front of our trucks, throwing our
car from the track and dragging it until it reached a sharp curve,
when the coupling pin broke and we turned over several times, landing
near the edge of the Watauga River. Captain Pilcher said that the
first voice that he heard from the groans of the wounded was my query:
“Captain, are you hurt?” He replied: “Yes; take these wounded men off
of me.”

As soon as we went over the lamps were smashed and it was very dark;
but with the assistance of a comrade who had only a few bruises like
mine, we succeeded in getting Captain Pilcher out through the end
window. His arm was broken, but on arrival at Knoxville he said that he
thought he would be able to travel in a week. As I had been absent for
six months, I was anxious to get back.




CHAPTER V.

THE CHICKAMAUGA CAMPAIGN.


I found the regiment on Duck River in the suburbs of Shelbyville. I was
glad to be with the boys again. I did not rest long, for the regiment
was busy making detail for digging fortifications, and I worked with
pick and shovel.

The two great evils attending war are drinking and gambling. In 1863
the drink habit was much lessened in our army because the drinks were
scarce and hard to get. Mr. McGrew kept a drug store on the Square in
Shelbyville, and by some means it was ascertained that he had some
whisky in the cellar, and one night some soldiers got into it and took
the whole stock, consisting of about half a barrel; and the old mill,
situated on the river, was frequently robbed of its stock; and in
unloading commissaries at the depot the soldiers would make _mistakes_
and throw meat under the depot, and at nightfall bring it to camp.
The mania for gambling continued unabated. I have seen men gamble all
night, and do a good deal of nodding on duty the next day. If they
did not have money to gamble with, chips for fun would not be much
amusement. I have seen on the march, just previous to an engagement,
bits of pasteboard (decks of cards) scattered along so that the line
of march could almost be designated by the scraps, and also by letters
torn and scattered, because a soldier did not wish to be found dead
on the field of battle with a deck of cards in his pocket, or prying
eyes to read his letters from home; but I have never yet seen a soldier
discard the little pocket Testament that his mother gave him when she
sent him forth with her prayers.

[Illustration: THE GAMBLING MANIA.]

Shelbyville was a place that could easily be flanked, and Rosecrans
was preparing for it. General Bragg hoped to give him battle on better
vantage ground (for us), and selected Tullahoma, and we prepared to
retire to that point in good order if General Rosecrans would permit.
Our army commenced to retire—the infantry in front, General Wheeler’s
cavalry in the rear. Early in the morning I was on detail to proceed
to the Nashville and Chattanooga depot and load up the commissaries.
We worked with a will, and thought that we could get everything in the
cars, but some of the detail early in the day found a lot of whisky and
commenced to get drunk. About 3 P.M. we heard a tremendous boom, boom
of our artillery on the Square, followed by a fusillade of musketry.
The Federal cavalry had approached from the front and flank. Lieutenant
J. R. McDaniel’s (or Wiggins’s) battery made a gallant resistance, and
succeeded in getting his pieces away with the loss of only two. He
lost a number of his men, however, the enemy riding into their midst
and cutting them with sabers. In attempting to cross the Duck River
bridge General Wheeler found it blockaded and swam his horse above it,
having the belt of his sword shot away. As soon as I saw the stampede
on the Square I ran into the depot, got some clothing and shoes out
of a box there, and went down under the depot (which had open sides)
and bivouacked in the dust with hogs and fleas, which were very
industrious. After leaving the Square the Federal cavalry rode rapidly
toward the depot. One of my detail, seeing them coming, staggered out
near the Barksdale House and said that he could whip the whole Yankee
army. It was only a short while before he was in Nashville, and later
in Fort Delaware. I remained with my companions (hogs and fleas, and
the dust made a pretty soft bed) till late in the night, and then by
the aid of the stars kept in the direction of Tullahoma, where I found
the First Tennessee next day in a beautiful black-jack grove about
one mile north of the town. In front of the grove an avenue some two
hundred feet wide by one mile long had been cut out, and it was a
splendid place to fight in the open; but the enemy chose not to fight
there. General Rosecrans’s scouts came within three miles of us, our
cavalry interposed, and General Starnes was mortally wounded. After a
few days’ rest we commenced to retire toward Chattanooga, and it was a
rough march over the mountains, but nothing in comparison with Cheat
Mountain. Soon after reaching Chattanooga we were put to work building
two immense forts—one near where the Stanton House is now, and the
other near the city cemetery, in the eastern suburbs of the city. The
only service that the forts rendered was to conceal in the dirt bacon
stolen from the cars, and hid there until a favorable time to remove it
to the camp.

We had been in Chattanooga but a short time when General Rosecrans
occupied Walden’s Ridge and Raccoon Mountain. About the 15th of August
our army moved out of Chattanooga. I did not know where we were going.
In fact, it is not the business of a private soldier to know anything
except to obey orders. I did not like to leave the forts, upon which
we had expended so much labor, knowing that in a short while the enemy
would be enjoying the fruits of our labor. We moved down the valley
via Rossville, McLemore’s Cove, and next day reached Lafayette, Ga.,
where we camped; the following day we faced again toward Chattanooga,
and early next morning crossed Chickamauga River at Lee and Gordon’s
Mill, and were soon drawn up in battle array, when General Maney
stood up in his stirrups and made a speech to the Tennessee boys,
saying: “We shall soon have an opportunity of striking again for our
homes and firesides, and to acquit ourselves like men worthy of the
old Volunteer State.” Soon the firing of pickets gave notice that
the battle of Chickamauga was about to begin. As the First Tennessee
Regiment moved in line through a thick wood of oak and pine, we struck
the enemy, who were posted on a hill much higher than our position.
General Cheatham rode in advance of the line with hat in hand, and
said: “Come on, boys.” The First Tennessee charged gallantly amidst a
terrible cannonade. A shell exploded in front of us, a piece striking
the shoulder of Lieutenant W. H. Webster, of the Maury Grays, from
which he soon bled to death. The enemy’s infantry retired before our
charge, and we reached the crest of a ridge and were ordered to “lie
down.” While in this position Ensign Joe Campbell raised up on his
arm, and a shot from the enemy pierced his brain, and he was instantly
killed. The next day we were moved to the right of our army and held
in reserve nearly the entire day, and late in the evening participated
in the final charge over the enemy’s breastworks of black-jack logs,
and Chickamauga was ours, and the enemy on retreat to Chattanooga, ten
miles distant. General Bragg has been much criticised because he did
not capture General Rosecrans’s army before it was safely ensconced in
the forts upon which we had expended so much labor. If General Bragg
had had a sufficient force of fresh cavalry, the feat might have been
accomplished; but it must be borne in mind that we had been on the
move some five days and nights, with little sleep and short rations,
and when the final charge came, about dusk of September 20, our men
fell down with the dead and wounded of the enemy inside of their former
breastworks, and went to sleep. The next day we moved leisurely up
to the crest of Missionary Ridge, and we lost comrade Eugene Topp,
of Pulaski, who was shot by the enemy’s pickets as we ascended the
ridge. From Missionary Ridge we could see the enemy scattered around
Chattanooga, and occupying our former forts. We moved down from the
ridge and went into camp at the base, facing toward Chattanooga. We
also occupied Lookout Mountain, and had one piece of artillery on the
Point; but we could not throw a shell to the Nashville and Chattanooga
depot, which was about three miles distant on an air line. Soon
afterwards General Grant succeeded General Rosecrans, and he had a
lot of guns casemated at Moccasin Point. We could look down on his
batteries, but we could not depress our pieces so as to give him any
trouble. A party of us would gather at the Point to attract his fire,
and as soon as we would see the smoke, down we would fall, and the
shell would whiz over us. Our pickets were on the bench of the mountain
below the Craven House, and extended up Lookout Creek. A shell from
Moccasin Point killed and wounded five of our men at one time. I was
on picket duty one day on Lookout Creek, a Federal on the other side.
You could take a run and jump across. I asked him how rations were.
He replied that they were living on ox-tail soup. He said that Joe
Wheeler had burned a number of bridges on the Nashville and Chattanooga
Railroad between Nashville and Chattanooga, and that General Grant had
started a train of some two hundred wagons with commissary stores,
and when they reached Sequatchie Valley Joe Wheeler again appeared on
the scene and burned the entire train; the army was therefore greatly
reduced in supplies.

In 1863 Chattanooga was not much of a town; Market was the principal
street, and that was filled with a lot of insignificant shanties,
hence General Grant’s army camped over the hills upon which beautiful
residences are now located. His tents extended from the fort near
the Stanton House to the river, while General Hooker’s tents covered
Raccoon Mountain. From the top of Lookout Mountain it was a grand scene
at night—the bright camp fires of this large army; and at nine o’clock
the many bugles would blow taps, after the music from many bands had
floated upward. On the night of November 24, 1863, we moved off of
Lookout Mountain and took our position on Missionary Ridge. Part of
the First Tennessee Regiment line was directly over the tunnel. From
this position we could clearly see the entire line of General Grant’s
army moving out of Chattanooga in order of battle, extending nearly
to Rossville. Just below where the Cincinnati Southern bridge is now
located could be seen General Sherman’s army crossing on steamboats,
and it did not take him a great while to get a battery on one bench of
Missionary Ridge, which was separated from our ridge by Chickamauga
River and the Western and Atlantic Railway. I think his position was
some higher than ours, and his battery annoyed us without doing much
damage. General Grant’s lines were drawing nearer and nearer to us,
and our batteries were belching forth, and we could now and then see
his men scatter from an exploding shell. Nearer and nearer they came
until we could see the glittering steel and the flash of the officers’
swords in the sunlight; nearer and nearer they came until lost to sight
at the base of Missionary Ridge. We then took our position on the
crest of the ridge, lying down and waiting for them to come in sight.
We did not have a great while to wait. Soon we saw the long line of
bluecoats advancing. We were hugging the ridge so closely that nothing
but our heads peered over; so it was not so easy to see us, as the
bushes were quite thick and many large trees were on the ridge. When
the bluecoats got within a hundred feet of us the firing commenced,
and they continued to advance, when Colonel Fields said: “Fire, boys,
and charge.” Down the ridge we went, the enemy keeping ahead of us.
We got so close to them that Colonel Fields hit a Federal on the head
with a rock, and comrade John Branch grabbed at the colors, tearing out
a piece, but the sergeant got away with them. We followed them to the
base of the ridge, where the town of Sherman Heights is now located.
Finding them in the trenches which we had once made, we returned to the
top of the ridge. It was now dusk, and we were still in line of battle
and drawing some rations, when the order came to get away as quietly
and quickly as possible. General Grant had pierced our center, and all
were in danger of capture. We were the worst disappointed soldiers in
the army. We thought our whole line as far as Rossville had made the
same movement that we had, and would next move on General Grant and
capture his army before it could get to our forts in Chattanooga.

Well, we did not stand upon the order of our going, but went out as
rapidly as possible, every fellow taking care of himself. We went
down many ridges and crossed the Chickamauga River on the Western and
Atlantic Railroad bridge, and afterwards burned it. The next day we
came to Chickamauga Station. There was a large pile of bacon there
ready to be burned rather than to have it fall into the hands of the
enemy. I fixed my bayonet and selected a small side of bacon through
which I ran the bayonet, and was marching along thinking what a nice
fry I would have for supper, when the enemy’s guns opened on us, and
the skirmish known as Cat Creek took place. I had to unfix my bayonet
in order to load my gun, and the bacon was lost. Samuel Seay was
wounded in this skirmish, and he begged the boys not to leave him in
the hands of the enemy. We told him we would not, unless they got
us; so four of us shouldered him, and we would now and then call for
relief. We marched till late in the night before reaching Ringgold; and
although Sam Seay was a light man, he got heavier and heavier. At one
place where we crossed the Chickamauga River I got very wet, and it was
a cold night—November 26. I rolled up my trousers as high as I could,
and four of us started across with Sam, and I got into a hole up to my
waist. Finally we reached a clump of black-jacks near Ringgold, through
which ran a country road well filled with autumn leaves, and here we
made our bed. We were sleeping soundly at sunrise when General Walker
came riding swiftly, saying: “Get up, men; the Yankees will soon be
here, and they will cut your throats.” We moved out promptly, and as we
had been the rear guard the day previous, we were now in the advance.
We had just reached the narrow place where the stream is spanned by
the railroad bridge, when the battle of Ringgold was fought; but we
continued our retrograde movement until Dalton was reached, and, after
camping there for some days and the weather getting cold, we built
winter quarters south of Dalton.




CHAPTER VI.

CARRY ME BACK TO OLD VIRGINIA.


While in winter quarters at Dalton, I received a letter from a relative
saying that she would soon get married, and had woven on her loom
a nice suit of jeans, and that I must come a week before in order
that the tailor could make them. Therefore, I made application for a
furlough, and it is not necessary to say here that I obtained a genuine
one. My destination was New Canton, Va., on the James River, sixty-six
miles above Richmond. I went via Columbia, S. C., and reached there
without any money. As I had not drawn any clothing from the Confederate
States Army for a year, I was entitled to so much money in lieu
thereof. I think the paymaster paid me ninety-five dollars.

When I reached Petersburg I heard that the canal was frozen over
between Richmond and New Canton. I therefore went from Petersburg to
Farmville by rail, and thence horseback to New Canton, hiring a negro
boy to bring the horses back. Near Buckingham Courthouse we had to ford
Slate River. Some men were working in the low ground, and I asked them
where to ford, as the river was much swollen. They pointed to a place
above, and in my horse went; down the stream he swam, and I clinging to
him. I got pretty wet, and as it was a very cold day I rode to the town
for some stimulants. I got a small glass of whisky, for which I paid
one dollar, and I said to the landlord: “It tastes like turpentine.”
He said: “It is pine top.” They cut off the boughs of pine and put them
into the whisky to color it and give it strength; hence the name “pine
top.”

I reached my destination without further mishap, and after a few days’
rest carried my piece of jeans to the tailor at Columbia, and soon
I was the best-dressed soldier in Buckingham county. The night for
the wedding soon drew near, and what a repast there was! There were
on the table all shapes of cake—tea, pound, and sponge cake—but all
made of the same ingredients, flour and sorghum. The coffee was made
of parched rye mixed with parched sweet potato peelings and sweetened
with sorghum. I do not believe that, in January, 1864, there were more
than five bags of coffee in Virginia. Nearly all the saddles had been
denuded of their skirts to make soles for shoes; and when leather
gave out, the farmers blocked out of hickory or dogwood solid soles
and heels. By taking sheepskin for uppers, it gave a solid hair shoe,
comfortable to ride in but very hard on the feet and limbs in walking.
The negro boy who made my fire woke me up by his tramping upstairs like
a horse. Of course in riding horseback the wooden shoes were all right.

I was struck with the absence of young men. They were all at the front
with General Lee. The old men and women, the girls and boys, were at
home, and the slaves watched over and guarded those girls as if they
were their own children. I never heard of an improper act committed
anywhere in old Virginia by any of the old-time slaves. All honor to
these old trusted servants, many of whom sleep in the sacred dust of
old Virginia! Another thing that impressed me was the devotion of the
Southern women to the boys in the army. They would deny themselves any
little delicacy they could get to send to the boys, and they would knit
and knit, sew and sew from morning till night; and as scarce as was
cotton goods in 1864. I have seen the women tear up their skirts and
make them into bandages and send them to our wounded in hospitals in
Richmond.

The nearest male relatives I had at that time were three first cousins.
Two of them had been discharged, and the other was in Company C,
commanded by Captain Miller, and was in the Forty-fourth Virginia
Regiment, General Jones’s Brigade, Major General Edward Johnson’s
Division, Army of Northern Virginia; and I desired to be with my cousin
in the final struggle. Being a native of Virginia, I was entitled to
the transfer under certain conditions: (1) The assent of the captain
commanding my company; (2) the consent of the captain of the company to
which I wished to be transferred; (3) the approval of the Congressman
representing my Congressional district.

Armed with these papers, I went to Richmond, and stopped at the
Spottswood Hotel, next day sending my card to Hon. Thomas S. Bocock.
He invited me to his room, where I explained to him my mission by
saying that I wished to come back to my native state and try to defend
her against the encroachments of General Grant. Mr. Bocock slapped me
on the shoulder and said: “Young man, we would like to have twenty
thousand like you. We will go down to the War Department, where we
will meet Mr. Judah P. Benjamin, and will arrange the transfer for
you.” We had a pleasant meeting with Mr. Benjamin, who was then acting
in place of Mr. Seddon. Mr. Benjamin said that I would have to return
to the First Tennessee Regiment at Dalton, and the transfer would
reach me through the headquarters of General Joseph E. Johnston. On
my return to Dalton the regiment was in comfortable winter quarters,
but I was very lonely. Only nine of my old Company B were present,
and I was glad a few days after to get notice to report to Captain
Miller, Company C, Forty-fourth Virginia Regiment, on the Rapidan, near
Vedersville, Va. As General Lee’s army was in winter quarters, and I
did not have to report in any specified time, I returned to Virginia,
and went over much the same ground as previously, except that I made
the trip by canal. I visited also while in Lynchburg. I arrived at
Orange Courthouse March 14, 1864, on quite a cold night. I went to the
only hotel near the depot, which was covered with what are called in
Virginia “clapboards.” I was surprised on awaking next morning to find
about three inches of snow on my coverlet. It had drifted in under the
boards. I found outside about ten inches of snow, through which I had
to trudge ten miles before I found my regiment.




CHAPTER VII.

ON THE RAPIDAN.


I found my boys in a comfortable cabin, ten of them in my cousin’s
mess. He was just recovering from a wound received at Brandy Station. I
was considered as a guest of the boys, and did not have to go through
any drudgery such as cooking or washing. However, I was detailed on
picket duty, and occasionally on drill. When I reached the camp,
rations consisted of middling meat and corn bread, without any salt.
We got along without salt as long as the middling meat lasted, as that
was quite salty. By the 1st of May the meat was gone, and many of the
soldiers were without shoes. When the meat gave out, we resorted to
wild onions, which were plentiful in that section, but hard to dig up.
They were about the size of shallots, but very deep rooted, and we
had to dig pretty deep with bayonets to get them up. These onions and
corn bread without salt did very well toward appeasing the appetite of
hungry soldiers.

One day I was on picket duty near the Rapidan River, which is a stream
a little larger than Duck River in Tennessee; just opposite us were
the Yankee pickets. One of them yelled out: “Hello, Johnny Reb! how is
sassafras tea to-day?” I told him the tea was all right, but we had no
sugar. I asked him how he was fixed for tobacco, and he said, “Very
short”; so we arranged on the morrow to get on duty again. I was to
bring a plug of tobacco, and he a shot pouch of coffee. The Federals
had their coffee parched, ground, and sugar mixed with it; so on the
morrow we made the exchange, and I don’t think that I ever enjoyed
coffee as much as I did that, having been months without a taste of
pure coffee. After making the exchange, he asked me how I would like
to have a New York _Herald_. He said that it was not contraband, for
it was several weeks old. I told him that I would like very much to
see it, as we did not get any papers now, and the ones received were
printed on the reverse side of wall paper and were so flimsy that they
would not stand the mails. So he tied the _Herald_ to a stick and
threw it across to me. When I opened it up, I read as follows: “_The
Rebel Capital Must be Captured at All Hazards; General Grant Has Been
Appointed to the Task_.” He afterwards uttered what became a memorable
saying: “I will fight it out on this line if it takes all summer.”




CHAPTER VIII.

THE WILDERNESS CAMPAIGN.


On May 1 General Lee issued the following order: “Send all extra
baggage to the rear”; and on May 3 he issued an order to cook three
days’ rations. The first order was easily complied with. Back to
Buckingham county was sent my Baltimore coat. The second order was also
easily complied with. Three days’ rations were three pones of corn
bread without any sifting and minus salt. We did not have any sifters
in General Lee’s army; and if we had, we could not have afforded the
loss of the bran.

On the night of May 4, 1864, General Grant crossed the Rapidan at
Germana, United States, and Ely’s fords. We had advanced to Mine Run,
and on the night of the 4th the two armies were not far apart. The
Wilderness is a peculiar country, and in the early days much gold
ore was smelted there. From the Rapidan to Spottsylvania Courthouse,
fourteen miles, is the wilderness proper. It is a slightly undulating
country without hills, but abounds in the thickest growth of pine
or black-jack. The pines are very tall, and range from an inch to
twelve inches in diameter. These small pines grow in thickets, and
in some places it is difficult to walk through. Sometimes you can
walk a mile through nothing but a wilderness of pines, with now and
then a black-jack; then it reverses, and you can walk for a mile in
a wilderness of black-jack, with now and then a pine. The growth
was thus because in cutting timber in the early days for smelting
the undergrowth came up afterwards as described. There were very few
cleared fields in this section, and they took their names from their
owners.

General Grant’s headquarters on the night of May 4 were near the
Wilderness Tavern, and one mile and a half from Palmer’s old field; and
our line of pickets was on the edge of Palmer’s field. A few years ago
I was where General Grant pitched his tent at the Wilderness. The trees
were then standing between which he rested the night of May 4, after
crossing the Rapidan, which was less than a mile distant. That night
everything betokened the conflict on the coming morrow—the neighing of
the horses, the unlimbering of artillery, the commands of the officers,
could be distinctly heard from our lines.

Before taps one of General Grant’s bands struck up the old song once
revered by North and South alike:

  The star-spangled banner, long may it wave
  O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

The music echoed and reëchoed through that wilderness of pines, and our
band responded with that song so dear to Southern hearts:

  Hurrah, hurrah, for Southern rights hurrah!
  Hurrah for the bonnie blue flag that bears a single star.

In response to our “Bonnie Blue Flag” General Grant’s band played
“Home, Sweet Home.” Looking back to that scene of May 4, 1864, I have
often thought that if the messenger of peace could have hovered over
the camp that night many would have been saved to family and friends;
for between May 5 and 12 nearly fifty thousand men fell, General Grant
losing nearly forty thousand. General Lee being on the defensive, his
loss was only about ten thousand.

What a contrast between the two armies assembled on the night of May
4, 1864! General Grant’s army numbered about one hundred and seventeen
thousand, and it was the best equipped and best provisioned army
ever marshaled in the United States. On the other hand, General Lee
had only about fifty-five thousand ill clad and poorly fed men, but
they were veterans who had previously held at bay such generals as
McClellan, Meade, Hooker, and Burnside. Many of the men were nearly
barefooted; and some were just from the hospital, with their wounds
not yet healed. The morning of May 5, 1864, found us forming on the
old plank road, my regiment extending across it. There were two roads
extending from Orange Courthouse to Fredericksburg, thirty-two miles
distant. One was called the plank road and the other the dirt road.
Both led out of Orange Courthouse together, but diverged soon after.
At our line they were three miles apart, and it was sixteen miles by
each road to Orange Courthouse or Fredericksburg. The plank road was
nearest the Rapidan River, and our left rested not far from the river
(our line extended three miles), the right resting on the dirt road
near Parker’s store. Running from the Rapidan River and crossing the
plank road and dirt road was the Brock road, extending from the Rapidan
River to Spottsylvania Courthouse, eighteen miles from the Rapidan
River. General Lee made no resistance to the passage of General Grant
across the Rapidan; in fact, all our pickets had been withdrawn when
General Grant first reached and obtained possession of the Brock road.
He thought that General Lee was retiring toward Richmond, but we were
hid in the Wilderness for the time being. His scouts reported our
whereabouts after nightfall of May 4. On the morning of May 5 we were
forming our lines; and as General Grant’s numbers outflanked us, we had
to stretch out the thin gray line, and on my part of the line we did
not have a rear rank, and the front rank files were so far apart that
they could not touch elbows. My line of battle was in a pine thicket
on the edge of Palmer’s field, a clearing of some two hundred feet in
width and some five hundred feet in length. On General Grant’s side of
the field the pine and underbrush were as thick as on our side. Just
in the rear of our line, and running parallel with us, was a newly cut
road on which wagons had recently been hauling out timber. Into this
road we ran a battery of nine pieces charged with grape and canister.
This was our position when, about 3 P.M., the picket lines commenced
firing, and our pickets, who were across the old field, ran to and
joined our ranks. Soon a line of blue appeared on the opposite side
of the thicket and opened a brisk fire, and continued to advance on
us; and the battle of the Wilderness had begun. The One Hundred and
Forty-sixth New York Zouaves were in our immediate front, and their
commander was Major Gilbert. They were as fine-looking a body of men as
I ever saw. They had yellow sashes around their waists, red caps with
tassels, and leggings on their ankles. With our shots and those from
the nine pieces of artillery they were mowed down like grass before
the sickle. It appeared to me that the whole regiment was annihilated.
Another line appeared quickly to take their place, and the battle
waged hot and fast till toward nightfall, when General Grant withdrew
his line into the thicket; and all through the night we lay on our
arms expecting an attack, as the artillery he had placed some distance
off boomed at us unceasingly. On the morning of May 6 eleven hundred
Federals were dead on Palmer’s old field. All their haversacks had
disappeared, and in many instances their knapsacks, and the pockets
of each were turned inside out, showing that their pockets had been
picked. Our men threw away their rations of corn bread, as they had
three days’ rations of hard-tack, besides some bacon and coffee. When
the Federals made their last charge, we were lying down firing, and
after they retired I said to my cousin, who was by my side: “That
was an impetuous charge.” Hearing no response from him, I looked and
saw that a bullet had pierced his forehead, killing him instantly. I
wrapped him in his oilcloth and blanket, and with the assistance of
comrades buried him with a black-jack tree for his headstone, into
which I cut with a knife the initials of his name, then wrote to his
father telling him the spot in case he wished him removed to the old
family burying ground, near Buckingham Church. Some months after, I
received a letter from his father saying: “My son died like a true
soldier on the field of battle, and I shall there let his bones rest.”

After burying all of our dead, Lieutenant George Price, of my company,
and I were sitting on a pine log to rest. All around was quiet except
now and then a shot from sharpshooters. We were only a short distance
from their line, and could see the Federal dead in the old field. We
were talking of the dead boys, and the feelings of the folks at home
when the news should reach them, when suddenly I heard a thud, and saw
the blood gushing from above the heart of my lieutenant. I gathered him
in my arms and lowered him to the earth. He did not speak, but from his
inside pocket gave me a daguerreotype. On opening the case I saw the
fair features of a James River young lady, and one whom I had heard
play and sing “When This Cruel War Is Over.”

On the morning of May 6 about sunrise one of our boys came into the
lines with a pair of boots on his arm. He said that he had been trying
all night to get the boots, but that every time he attempted to pull
them off the soldier would open his eyes. He died just before this, and
our comrade got the boots.

All day quiet reigned in our front, save now and then the sharpshooters
of the enemy, who fired from the tall trees; but of course their shots
were at random, as we could not be seen from their lines. On the right
of our line the battle was raging furiously. General Grant threw the
columns of General Warren against those of Longstreet, and attempted
to turn our right flank as he had failed the previous day to turn our
left. The battle was in a wilderness of black-jacks as thick as ours
was of pines. First one side and then the other advanced and receded
till the end of the day’s struggle, when General Longstreet held the
ground in advance of where it commenced. Eight years ago, when I was
going over the Wilderness battlefield, I came upon a huge stone which
marked the spot where one of the Texas Rangers took hold of the bridle
reins of “Traveler” and carried General Lee from the front to the rear.

The 7th of May was very quiet and quite warm. The bodies of the dead
in the old field were very much swollen, and General Lee sent a flag
of truce to General Grant requesting that we be allowed to bury the
Federal dead, which request was granted. There is very little ceremony
in burying the dead of an enemy. With a shovel the dirt is removed
the length of the soldier and to the depth of eight or ten inches,
and then with the shovel the body is turned into the little trench,
sometimes falling on side or back and sometimes on the face; the dirt
removed from the little trench is then shoveled onto the body, and is
soon washed off by the rains, when the body is mutilated by hogs or
vultures. We had buried but few of the dead when orders came to fall
into ranks, as General Grant was on the march toward Richmond. As we
were in the rear, our march was very slow, and we soon bivouacked for
the night.

On May 8 we passed near where Generals Warren and Longstreet fought
on the 6th, and saw many sickening sights. The wads from the guns had
fired the thick beds of leaves in the black-jack thicket, and some of
our wounded had been burned, and their charred remains were close to
our line of march. We moved very slowly on the 9th of May; but on the
10th, early in the morning, our advance was in position a few miles
northeast of Spottsylvania Courthouse, and General Grant made a furious
charge, trying to dislodge us, but General Lee held the position.
General Sedgwick was killed, and near by is a handsome monument erected
to him. On the night of May 10, by the aid of engineers’ voices (it
was a very dark night), the dead angle was formed, and we commenced to
dig lively with our bayonets, throwing out the dirt with tin plates.
On the night of May 11 the trench was completed and occupied by us, as
we expected an attack at any moment. In building the trench we threw
the dirt out in front, and on top of the dirt placed some small pine
logs, cut out of the thicket. The logs would be of no use in case
artillery was used, but we knew that General Grant could not use it on
account of the wilderness, but the little logs served their purpose
in catching Minie balls. All night there was a steady drizzling rain,
and soon after daylight on the morning of the 12th of May we heard
the pickets firing, and soon they came running in and scampered over
the breastworks and yelled out, “Boys, the Yanks are coming in three
columns!” and soon we were engaged with General Hancock’s Corps.
The battle raged furiously for a while, and the front column of the
Federals was not more than thirty feet from our line. Soon I heard
one of our men say: “Stop firing; they will kill all of us.” I heard
a voice in our rear say, “Surrender,” and it was accompanied with an
oath. I looked up, and General Thomas Francis Meagher’s Brigade was
in our rear, and some of our men were being shot and clubbed to death
with guns after they had thrown down their arms. The big, burly
Irishman that had called on me to surrender had his gun within two
feet of my body and his finger on the trigger. Why he did not shoot, I
will never know. Major General Edward Johnson, commanding my division,
and Colonel Norvell Cobbs, of my regiment, had dismounted previous
to the battle, and were near me in the trenches, and we leaped the
breastworks, grabbing the pine logs on top to assist us over, and we
were in the midst of the attacking column in front. Eleven hundred men
were captured, which comprised all of General Johnson’s division except
seven of my regiment that were on our extreme right. When we reached
General Hancock’s men they displayed the excitement incident to a
fierce charge, and I think we had about four guards to each prisoner.
They rushed to us and said, “To the rear, quick, men”; and away they
ran with us. Of course we know that it was not our personal safety
that they were looking after, but they wished to get out of the fight.
After the war I talked with one of the seven men who was not captured,
and he said that just after we left the trenches General J. B. Gordon
came up with his division, and charged Meagher’s Brigade, tumbling
them into the trenches that we had left and, crossing them, was soon
in the midst of Hancock’s Corps, whose ranks had been so depleted by
his men going with us to the rear that a gap was left in front. It was
in this charge that General Gordon caught the bridle rein of Traveler
and asked General Lee to retire to the rear, as his boys would do the
fighting. Our three or four guards each trotted us to the rear rapidly,
and I suspect would have gone with us as far as Fredericksburg, but
for General Grant; for when we reached his headquarters, about a mile
in the rear, the General was directing couriers to different positions
on the field. When he saw the head column of prisoners attended by
so many guards, he knew why there was trouble in General Hancock’s
ranks. Turning to one of his staff, General Grant said: “Reorganize
that line; for every four prisoners a guard, and place Lieutenant ——
in command.” When the line was reorganized, we proceeded slowly along
the dirt road in single file toward the town of Fredericksburg, distant
sixteen miles. Soon we had to move out of the road and take to the
edge of the woods, for marching in columns of fours were twenty-five
thousand soldiers who had been doing duty as guards since we invaded
Pennsylvania and Maryland. Many of them were members of the heavy
artillery, and had been armed as infantrymen. Each regiment was headed
by a fine band. We were in a sorry plight to meet such an array of
tinseled regalia. Many of our men were hatless, shoeless, and coatless,
and were covered with mud from the trenches. This grand army guyed us
all day. As we met one column a good-natured-looking soldier yelled
out: “Hello, Johnnies! we are taking you North, and will give you
something to eat, put some clothes on your backs, and shoes on your
feet.”

Toward nightfall we bivouacked on the marshy plains of Marye Heights,
overlooking Fredericksburg. The ground was wet and marshy. One of our
boys had a pocketknife, and we cut some chinquapin bushes, and four of
us set back to back on the pile of bushes. This was a good way to rest
and sleep when the wet ground would not allow a horizontal position. We
had a chain picket around our camp. In army parlance a chain picket is
one in which the guards are so close together that with extended arms
they can touch hands; so it would be difficult to get away with guards
so near each other.

[Illustration: THE BIVOUAC]

The next day we went through Fredericksburg, crossed the Rappahannock
River on the pontoon General John Pope built while he was in the
campaign of “On to Richmond, with headquarters in the saddle.” Eight
miles from Fredericksburg we reached Belle Plains, on the Potomac. We
camped a few days here, waiting for transports, and drew very good
rations of hard-tack, bacon, sugar, and coffee. Here I first saw what
was then termed the Christian Commission, whose duty it was to minister
to the spiritual and material welfare of the United States Army. They
did not minister to any of the Confederate prisoners. I guess they
thought we were an incorrigible set.




CHAPTER IX.

PRISON LIFE, POINT LOOKOUT, MD.


[Illustration: IN THE HANDS OF COLORED TROOPS.]

In a few days the transports came along, and we boarded them quickly,
reaching Point Lookout May 20; and before getting in line each prisoner
was subjected to a search and relieved of any valuables or knives and
pistols. We found as guards here about eleven hundred colored soldiers,
in command of Major H. G. O. Weymouth, of the Nineteenth Massachusetts
Regiment. Major Weymouth lost a leg in the battle of Fredericksburg,
and this post was given him, and also because he was a good executive
officer.

General Grant knew how to economize in men; and as these colored
soldiers had not behaved well at the front, he replaced them with
white troops and sent the colored soldiers to Point Lookout. This
camp occupied some twenty acres of sandy land. It was a peninsula
with several wells, and the waters before the war were noted for
their medicinal properties. It was situated on Chesapeake Bay at the
confluence of the Potomac River. The bay was twenty-five miles wide,
and it was eight miles across the Potomac. The camp was surrounded by
a fence sixteen feet high, and three feet from the top was a parapet
walkway which was the beat of the guards, who were stationed some
forty feet apart; besides, there were also a garrison on the outside
and artillery, shotted, to be used in case of an insurrection by the
prisoners.

Much has been said, written, and spoken of the treatment of prisoners,
North and South. In the United States Senate it was on one occasion
the cause of a heated debate between Senators Hill and Blaine; and
no doubt Senator Hill got the better of the argument, for with the
Southern ports all blockaded, our people raising tobacco, cotton,
resin, and turpentine, we did not have provisions to feed the army,
and consequently the prisoners at Andersonville and other Southern
prisons had to fare the same as our army. On the other hand, the United
States was teeming with men, provisions, and money, all the ports were
open to the world, and a bounty of six hundred dollars had induced
a great flood of emigrants from the Old World. While the words I use
in describing prison life may be harsh, yet there is no bitterness in
my heart. When I took the oath of allegiance at Elmira, N. Y., nearly
three months after General Lee surrendered, I turned my back upon
the past, and buried it with all its prejudices and animosities. I
recognize the fatherhood of God, the brotherhood of man, and there is
no one with whom I cannot clasp hands.

The quarters at Point Lookout were large Sibley tents, which were
cone-shaped. These tents would accommodate seventeen men sleeping in a
circle. We did not need any blankets, and for a pillow we raked up a
bank of sand. It was very hot in these tents with so many bunkmates.
Our rations consisted of salt pork, bean soup, hard-tack, and
occasionally fresh meat. We had not been in prison long before we were
deprived of coffee. There were three large gates in the fence opening
out to Chesapeake Bay, and we bathed and did our washing there. Near
Major Weymouth’s headquarters was another gate, opening to the pier
where all the vessels unloaded prisoners and supplies. On the bay side
at night the gates were closed, and no one could get to the bay. I was
at the Point five weeks without change of clothing. I would go into the
bay, wash my clothes, hang them on sand to dry, and go into the water
up to my chin to keep from getting sunburned. At the end of five weeks
I resolved to get some clothing, so I denied myself a ration a day, and
after the two days’ fast I sold my two rations to a fellow-prisoner
for five cents, and with the money I purchased from the sutler one
postage stamp, in those days three cents, and one cent each for sheets
of paper and envelopes; and as soon as my letter reached a friend in
Baltimore he sent me a package of clothing and a ten-pound package
of Killikinnick smoking tobacco. In writing a letter you could use
only one side of the sheet, as all letters had to be examined and
approved before mailing, and you had to be careful not to write
anything contraband. The envelopes were stamped: “Prisoner’s letter,
examined and approved.” On receiving letters, they first came to the
commandant and were read and stamped approved by him. Remittances of
money, by mail or express, were receipted for by the commandant, and
then turned over to the sutler. In some prisons I have heard that the
commandant and sutler were partners; I do not think that this was the
case, however, at Point Lookout. At nine o’clock at night the bugle was
sounded for taps or lights out, and every one had to be in his tent at
that hour with lights out. The colored soldiers patroled after nine
o’clock along the avenues between the tents with six-shooters in their
hands; and if they heard any noise in a tent, they would shoot into it;
therefore, after 9 P.M. Point Lookout, with its army of ten thousand
men, was almost as quiet as a cemetery.

Of course it was very humiliating to Southern men to be thus guarded
by some of their former slaves. All the commissaries, wood, etc., was
unloaded by details of prisoners; and many of them were anxious to get
on this detail, as it gave them a day outside of prison walls, and
also sometimes an opportunity to appropriate some extra rations; and
again, they could hear what they called grapevine news. Newspapers were
not allowed in the prison, and our chance to hear anything from the
front was very limited. There was a line inside the prison called the
dead line, which was one of the guards’ beats, and no one was allowed
to cross this line. One evening a squad which had been on detail on the
outside entered the prison, and quite a crowd rushed up to them to hear
the news, and some of them were crowded over the dead line. Without
hesitation the guard fired into the group, severely wounding two of
our prisoners. Major Weymouth had the sentinel removed, but I never
heard of his court-martial. Our ears were frequently greeted with the
expression from the colored guards: “The bottom rail is on top now; my
gun wants to smoke.”

For a great deal of persecution from the guards I do not think that
Major Weymouth was responsible. They were, nearly all of them, young
negroes from the North Carolina tobacco fields. They were uniformed the
same as white troops, and of course they felt their importance. While
Major Weymouth was at the head of the troops, he was also to command
the prisoners and to see that there was no infringement of the rules
and regulations. Major Weymouth was a Mason, and allowed the prisoners
to make an appeal to the fraternity at Baltimore for clothing, which
was sent to the prison, and he distributed it to them.

Major Wirz occupied the same position at Andersonville in command of
our guards, who were all white. There is no doubt that many indignities
offered prisoners at Andersonville were without his knowledge or
consent. Mr. Oakley, who is at present yardmaster of the Louisville
and Nashville Railroad, was from an Ohio regiment, and served a term
in Andersonville. I heard him say that Wirz was a Mason, and that he
had known him on many occasions to read the Masonic burial service
over his dead. Mr. Oakley contends that Wirz was not a cruel man, yet
the poor fellow was denied the glorious death of a soldier by being
shot, but suffered an ignominious death by hanging. If we had gained
our independence, I do not think that Major Weymouth would have been
hanged for the many crimes committed by the colored sentinels at Point
Lookout; but there is no telling what feelings are engendered by a
civil war in which father is arrayed against son, brother against
brother, and neighbor against neighbor. We lived too close to our
brethren in East Tennessee and Kentucky not to be familiar with
the bitter sectional hate; but let me digress just here to give an
illustration between a civil and a foreign war, in which the treatment
of prisoners of war is in marked contrast. During the Spanish-American
War I was in Norfolk, Va., just after one hundred and twenty prisoners
had been received at the Naval Hospital from Admiral Cervera’s
fleet. Our ladies were very kind to them, sending them all sorts of
delicacies; and it will be remembered that some enthusiastic American
suggested that we purchase a mansion for the Admiral, and induce him to
reside with us.

A peculiar malady affected the prisoners at Point Lookout. After dark
about half of them were blind, and daylight would restore their sight.
One day I asked the doctor the cause, and he said that he thought that
the salty soup mixed with the mineral-water had something to do with
it, but that the prime cause was the sun’s heat and reflection from the
water, the sand, and the white tents.

One day there was quite a commotion in camp, and I saw a crowd
gathering near one of the tents. On inquiry I heard, “There is a woman
in camp.” It appeared that, in order to be with her lover, who was an
artilleryman, she had doffed her feminine garb, cut short her hair, and
donned the uniform of an artilleryman. Major Weymouth provided her with
feminine wearing apparel and sent her home. Whether either survived the
cruel war and afterwards married, “this deponent sayeth not.”

An enterprising prisoner whom I knew many years ago in Lynchburg, Va.,
made him a gambling house of pieces of cracker boxes, and here gambling
was going on from early morn till nearly nine o’clock at night. If the
prisoners did not have any money, they put up tobacco as stakes.

In July, 1864, the prison was overcrowded with captures from General’s
Lee’s army, and the government was building a new one at Elmira, N. Y.,
and about the 15th of July commenced to transfer a large number to that
point. I left July 30 on a transport. One thousand men were loaded on
one steamer. We were packed away in the hull and lower deck, and were
not allowed in the cabin. We steamed down the bay, and were en route
to Jersey City. Before reaching Elmira it may be well to give some
statistics:

  White troops enlisted by the United States 1861-65, about 2,100,000
  Colored troops                                              190,000
  The Confederate States, about                               650,000
  The United States captured                                  220,000
  The Confederate States captured                             270,000
  Died in Northern prisons                                     26,246
  Died in Southern prisons                                     22,576

The death rate North was twelve per cent., while the death rate South
was only nine per cent., and we have already seen that there was
little in the South to feed prisoners or any one else. When we landed
at Jersey City, I saw a large crowd over at Governor’s Island, and
upon inquiring who they were, the answer came: “Bounty jumpers.” I
asked what constituted a bounty jumper, and the reply was that a lot
of foreigners came to the United States for the six hundred dollars
bounty, and after getting the money deserted.

Soon after reaching Jersey City we disembarked, and were loaded into
the cars, and a guard stationed at each door. The car windows were
small, and there was no chance to get out. While en route we were not
allowed to speak to any one at the various stations at which we stopped.

[Illustration: PRISON CAMP, ELMIRA, N. Y.]




CHAPTER X.

PRISON LIFE AT ELMIRA, N. Y.


We reached Elmira prison August 2, 1864, and as we marched through the
city quite a curious crowd followed us and commented on the appearance
of the Rebels, as they termed us. We had been preceded by some fifteen
hundred prisoners from the former prison at Point Lookout. As Elmira
was a new prison, the government had not built any barracks, and we
were comfortably quartered in tents; and the tents were located some
fifty feet from the stockade, and no one was allowed to go between the
tents and fence or stockade.

The prison camp contained some forty acres of land about one mile
above the city, and near the Cheming River, a beautiful, clear, limpid
mountain stream of very pure water. The stockade that surrounded the
camp was much like the one at Point Lookout, but built of heavier
material, and the ends of the upright planks going some eighteen
inches into the ground. The planks were about sixteen feet high, and
nailed to heavy sills, which were supported by large posts set deep in
the ground. The stockade was about sixteen feet high, and three feet
from the top was the parapet walkway or beat of the guards, who were
stationed some forty feet apart, and were relieved every two hours by
other guards. Commencing at nine o’clock at night, or at taps, they
would cry out their posts all through the hours of the night, as,
“Post No. 1, nine o’clock; all is well,” which would be taken up by all
posts, and repeated all around the stockade. Inside the stockade, about
fifty feet apart, were large coal oil lamps nailed near the center of
the stockade, with large reflectors, which were lit after nightfall,
and the guards on the parapet would be able to see any one approaching.

The tents in which we slept were struck every morning in order for
inspection. The prisoners in one of the tents had a false floor laid
and covered with dirt hard packed so it would have the same appearance
as the ground floor in the other tents. Under this false floor was one
of the prisoners, digging day and night. There were six occupants of
this particular tent, and by making a detail one man was digging all
the time. They were tunneling to get under the fence. The tunnel was
only about two feet under the ground, and they had to go about sixty
feet distance to get under the fence; the only implement they had was
a large knife. They had a small box to which was attached a string
at both ends, and when the fellow at the farther side had filled his
box he gave a pull of the string, and the other fellow just under the
false floor of the tent would pull the box under the floor, pile up
the dirt, and at night they would remove the false floor, gather the
dirt in their hands, fill their haversacks, and scatter the dirt along
the new-made streets. When they reached the upright planks of the
stockade they had to go over a foot lower than the tunnel in order to
get under the end of the planks. Finally the tunnel was completed, and
one of the boys crawled through, poked his head on the outside, and
came and reported bright moonshine, disclosed the camp of the guards
under patrol across the street, and a number of pieces of artillery in
position along the camp; so they waited for the moon to go down before
they commenced their underground journey. The plan was that the last of
the six to leave should notify as many of the prisoners as he could, in
order that they might take advantage of it; but only fifteen got out,
and we heard that they reached Canada in safety.

I had charge of and was sergeant, by Federal appointment, of Ward
Thirty-six. My duty was to call the roll once a day, make out the
daily ration report, and to report the sick sent to the hospital and
convalescents received from the hospital. While out calling the roll
the morning the boys made their escape, I saw a number of the guards
with picks in their hands, and they excavated the tunnel up to the tent
and carried away and destroyed the false bottom. I was surprised to see
how crooked the tunnel was, yet underground it was so dark that they
could not make it straight. The tunneling ceased after that successful
attempt.

It is fortunate that I kept a diary in Elmira prison, which refreshes
memory of the many scenes I witnessed during my sojourn there, and the
following survivors of the camp are now living and can testify to my
statements: Alphonso S. Allen, Nashville, Tenn.; L. T. Webb, Nashville,
Tenn.; R. W. Miller, Nashville, Tenn.; W. S. Riddle, Nashville, Tenn.;
W. G. Lloyd, Lewisburg, Tenn.: P. D. Houston, Lewisburg, Tenn.; D.
B. Anderson, Gallatin, Tenn.; H. M. Cartmell, Lebanon, Tenn.; Stokely
Jacobs, Murfreesboro, Tenn.; Richard Messick, Beech Grove, Tenn.

In a military prison it was very difficult to get information from the
outside world. No papers were allowed, and the papers received had been
opened and read; if there was anything contraband, you did not get
it. When you wrote a letter it was left unsealed, and when the prison
authorities examined it they stamped it “Prisoner’s letter, approved,”
and then sealed and mailed it. Money was contraband of war, for a
fellow might bribe his way out; therefore, whenever a remittance came
to a prisoner it was turned over to the sutler, who opened an account
with the owner, and he could purchase all he wished so long as the
funds held out; but when money went, a prisoner’s credit was _non est_.

Until I reached prison I did not know what a slave to habit man was. I
have seen men go hungry a day and save their rations and trade them for
tobacco. I have seen a prisoner discharge a quid of tobacco from his
mouth and another one pick it up, dry and smoke it. They used the black
navy tobacco, sold in prison at the rate of one dollar per pound. They
would cut it into little squares; each square would be called a chew,
and five chews five cents. We had all kinds of trades and traffics,
and tobacco was one of the mediums of exchange. We had many barbers,
and they would shave you for five chews of tobacco. When the barber
would get more tobacco than he needed, he would sell five chews for a
small loaf of bread, valued at five cents, or he could purchase a small
piece of meat or a fresh rat, each valued at five cents. These barbers
carried square boxes with them, upon which they set their patients; and
a fellow would have to be very patient, as they never used a hone or
strap except their boots and shoes, and it was hard to tell which was
the worst sufferer, the barber or his customer.

[Illustration: SHAVE FOR FIVE CHEWS OF TOBACCO.]

[Illustration: THE BARREL SHIRT.]

Before the fall season opened the government had erected forty-two
wards, capable of holding and sleeping three hundred men each, with
bunks three high on each side; also two large hospitals, and one
large cook house where the light bread was baked and soup and meat
cooked. Adjoining the cook house was a large shed with tables that
would accommodate three hundred men, and there were in the shed about
twenty tables which were higher than my waist when standing. Of course
they were higher to a small boy. Seats were not allowed. The men were
marched in in two ranks, and separated at the head of the table, making
one rank face the other. Each man had a plate and spoon; in the plate
were his bean soup and beans, by the side of his plate was a small
piece of light bread, and on the bread a thin ration of salt pork. The
rations were thus prepared: A baker who lived outside would come in
daily and superintend the baking. In the cook house were a large number
of iron kettles or caldrons in which the meat and beans were boiled.
I suppose these caldrons would hold fifty gallons. The salt pork was
shipped in barrels and rolled up to the caldrons, and with a pitchfork
tossed in, then the beans—I have heard the boys say four beans to a
gallon of water. Now when this is boiled down it gets very salty, and
after three weeks of a diet of this kind a prisoner will commence to
get sick. I thought for a while that the government was retaliating
on us on account of Andersonville, but I afterwards believed that it
was done by the army contractors. We had the same kind of a scandal
in the corned beef business during the Spanish-American War; we would
nowadays call them grafters. So I can say without hesitancy that the
death rate here was higher than at any other prison North or South.
The life of the prison did not average seven months, because it was
not opened till July, 1864, and prisoners arrived till December, 1864,
when the maximum of twelve thousand had been received. There are two
thousand nine hundred and seventeen graves in the cemetery, and over
two thousand died who were exchanged to go home and die, and many died
before they reached home. A prisoner eating this diet will crave any
kind of fresh meat. Marching through the camp one day was a prisoner
in a barrel shirt, with placard, “I eat a dog”; another one bearing
a barrel, with placard, “Dog Eater.” The barrel shirt was one of the
modes of punishment. The shirt was made by using a whisky or coal oil
barrel, knocking out one end and in the other boring a hole so as to
get the head through, and then putting on a placard to indicate the
crime. It appeared that these prisoners had captured a lapdog owned
by the baker who came into camp daily to bake the bread. The baker
made complaint to Colonel Beall, and said that his wife and children
would not have taken one hundred dollars for the dog. As the prisoners
had nothing to pay with, they were treated to the barrel shirt. The
punishment was a two hours’ march followed by a soldier with a bayonet,
and they were not allowed much rest till the two hours were completed.
I saw another barrel shirt, “I told a lie.” A prisoner did not have
much compunction of conscience, especially if he had lied to deceive
the commandant, which he conceived to be his religious duty. A prisoner
carrying a barrel shirt, “I stole my messmate’s rations,” was hissed
all around the camp; and deservedly so, because a man who would steal
from his messmates in prison deserved the most severe punishment; while
the ones who carried the placard “Dog Eater” had the sympathies of the
entire camp, because many of them would have enjoyed a piece of the
fresh meat. When twitted about it, they said: “It was not a common cur,
but a Spitz, and tasted like mutton.”

[Illustration: TRAFFIC IN RODENTS.]

On account of the waste from the commissary a great many rodents from
Elmira ran into the prison. As there were not any holes in which they
could hide, it was an easy catch for the boys by knocking them over
with sticks, and there was quite a traffic in them. As there was very
little currency in prison, tobacco, rats, pickles, pork, and light
bread were mediums of exchange. Five chews of tobacco would buy a rat,
a rat would buy five chews of tobacco, a loaf of bread would buy a rat,
a rat would buy a loaf of bread, and so on. I am glad that I did not
have to go on this diet; but I have tasted a piece of rat, and it is
much like squirrel. I bought one for one of my men who was sick. I had
friends in Louisville, Cincinnati, Baltimore, Hoosick Falls, N. Y.,
and was kept well supplied with everything I needed until an order was
issued saying that we would have to get a permit to ask for anything
in the North. I suppose this was done because we were arousing too
much sympathy. When cut off from the North, I fell back on Nashville
friends. On August 19, 1864, the sutler received orders not to sell
us any fruits or vegetables, but it was rescinded in about two weeks.
In the meantime I was prepared for it. I had sent out and bought a
sheet-iron stove and had it erected in my office, which was a room
about eight by ten in the front end of the ward. I had three bunks, and
three of the boys stayed with me. One did the cooking, one the washing,
and the other attended to the sick in the ward; and by reference to
my diary I find that I weighed, on the cook house scales, one hundred
and eighty-one pounds. As sergeant of the ward I had to make the
requisitions for rations for the ward, also for the sick in the ward,
and I rarely made a correct one, and the mistake was always in my
favor, and the extra rations thus obtained sufficed for three of us.
We would take the salt pork and give it about three boilings in fresh
water together with the beans, and when fried the pork would taste like
fresh meat; on account of the diet the hospitals were all filled, and
many sick were in the wards. There was a young man named Stroup, from
South Carolina. He was a nephew of Squire W. D. Robinson, of Nashville.
I had been writing to the Squire for Stroup, and money was sent to
him, and he had been examined by the doctor for exchange; but I was
satisfied that he would not leave the prison alive, and one morning as
I knelt by his bunk and pressed his clammy brow with my hard hand, he
feebly said “Mother,” and his soul passed into the beyond. But it was
not mother’s hand; mother was in the far Southland, and I thought, “O
the power of a mother’s love!” and when a child could forget a mother’s
love it would be below the instincts of a brute.

[Illustration: THE DYING PRISONER.]

The bunks extended the length of the ward on each side, leaving an
aisle in the center and two stoves in each ward, and the prisoners were
not allowed to get very close to them in zero weather. With an open
building, the heat was not very intense. The bunks were three high,
and the boys occupying the top bunk had to do some climbing. They were
wide enough to sleep two medium-sized men. Each one was allowed only a
pair of blankets, and so had to sleep on the hard board; therefore,
in extreme weather four slept in the space of two, using one pair of
blankets to sleep on, which gave three for cover. Two of them slept
with their heads toward the east, and two with heads toward the west,
and of course had to be on their sides; and when ready to change
positions, one would call out, “All turn to the right”; and the next
call would be, “All turn to the left.” The turns had to be made as
stated, or there would be collisions. Of course the men did not disrobe
in extreme cold weather, and on awakening in the morning their feet
would be in each other’s faces.

Comrade W. S. Riddle, of Nashville, had not been in prison very long,
and did not know all the rules, and one day he got hold of a cracker
box and was whittling off shavings when the sergeant came along and
asked: “What are you doing?” Will replied: “I am trying to make a
softer bed; that board nearly breaks my back.” The sergeant said:
“Throw out those shavings, sir; you are not allowed to litter up the
ward.” Not a straw or shaving was allowed in the ward. Each man was
required to fold up his blanket in the morning and deposit it in the
bunk. Comrade Riddle was horrified one day to see four prisoners
sitting in a bunk playing poker, when in a near-by bunk was a dying
prisoner. But such is war: a man’s sensibilities are dwarfed. To
illustrate the severity of prison life, Riddle went into Elmira with a
squad of six, and he was the only one to get out alive. By reference
to my diary, I note that we had almost daily inspection in the wards,
and every ten days we had what the officers called “muster” on the
outside. In the ward inspection the boys were formed in two ranks
inward face, hat in hand, while the Federal inspection officer passed
down one line and returned by the other. I think this was to keep the
officer in military training. In the muster on the outside my diary
says that on one occasion the boys were held in line two hours on a
very cold day and in snow ankle-deep. This was very rough on the boys
from the extreme South, and they shivered as with chills.

My diary says that Major Richmond ordered me to the guardhouse for
throwing water on the street. The guardhouse was a room about forty
feet square, without any light or ventilation; it was like a dungeon. I
said to the guard: “Wait until I write a note to Major Colt.” In this
note I said: “Officer of the day, Major Richmond, ordered me to the
guardhouse for throwing water on the street. It was not dirty water,
but from the dipper, as I saw some sediment in it previous to drinking.
I respectfully ask that you give me a hearing, that I may vindicate
myself.” I was in the guardhouse, or dungeon, only a few hours when
Major Colt ordered my release.

One night the boom of cannon saluted our ears, and a solid shot passed
through Ward No. 5, and came near hitting some of the occupants. I
heard later that the boys were making a noise, and the artillerymen
thought that an insurrection was brewing, and they wanted us to know
that the artillery was in position and ten guns always shotted for an
emergency.

No civilians were allowed in the prison except on permit from the
President or the Secretary of War, so an enterprising citizen with
an eye to business erected across the street from the prison a large
observatory, reached from below by winding stairs. He charged ten cents
for admission, and kept the platform filled all day. His customers used
spyglasses, and scrutinized the camp with much curiosity. I suppose
they got their money’s worth. The baker, the preacher, and Horace
Greeley were the only visitors that I saw previous to the surrender
of General Lee. Mr. Greeley made some sneering remark about Southern
chivalry, so when the time came that I should choose between General
Grant and Mr. Greeley for President I voted for General Grant. I
thought it was a magnanimous act when he said, “Boys, take your horses,
go home, and go to work”; and later, when the Federal authorities
attempted to disturb the parole of General Lee, he said, “It cannot be
done so long as I am in command of the army.”

I find in my diary of November 8, 1864, the following entry: “The
election appears to pass off quietly in Elmira; no demonstration at
night. I believe it would be to the best interests of the South that
old Abe be elected, because if General McClellan is elected it would
tend to solidify the Northern Democrats.” There was quite an anti-war
party in the North, and we expected much disturbance at the November
election, and there were local disturbances; but the government had so
many soldiers at its command that all mobs were quickly dispersed.

I find in my diary of November 9, 1864: “Some of the prisoners broke
into the commissary last night and stole quite a lot of provisions, and
an order was issued by Captain Whitson that if the provisions were not
returned no more meals would be issued.” It was roll call before the
stolen articles were returned and we got our dinner.

[Illustration: THE INGENIOUS PRISONER.]

On November 10 we had our regular muster, and heard that President
Lincoln was reëlected. In November, 1864, the boys commenced to get
quite a lot of small change in the following way; and it illustrates
that “necessity is the mother of invention,” for without any previous
knowledge the men engaged in the manufacture of gutta-percha rings
which were afterwards sold and distributed throughout the North and
South. The machine with which the rings were made was a simple one, and
made with a knife. The upright or drill was whittled out of a cracker
box, and at the point was a needle, a horizontal bar with a hole in
the center and a string tied at each end, the strings reversing at the
top of the drill. Near the needle or drill was a wheel which gave the
drill a rotary action. By moving the hand up and down the wheel moved
forward and backward, drilling very rapidly. To get the gutta-percha
buttons, they approached the guards quietly and said: “Bring us some
gutta-percha buttons, and we will make you some rings; also bring in
some five- or ten-cent pieces of silver, so that we can make settings
for the rings.” With a knife the inside of the button was cut out to
fit the finger; then with the drill two or three buttons were riveted
together, and with a hammer the silver was flattened out and cut with
the knife into shapes of two hearts joined together and two hands
joined. In some instances the men would get hold of a mussel shell
highly colored, and insert a small seal in the ring. I have bought
and given away many of these rings, North and South, and have some
now in Nashville for which I paid two dollars and a half. The next
procedure was to dispose of the rings, which was done by the guards
smuggling them to the city, selling them, and dividing the proceeds
with the prisoners; and I believe in nearly every instance the guards
were honest in returning a part of the proceeds of the sale. Generally
their commissions were about one-half. There were also prisoners at
work on horsehair watch guards or necklaces. They were made in a manner
similar to the way that ladies work with a crochet needle, except the
boys’ needles were whittled out of pine. To make a hook, they cut out
of a white beef bone a form representing a snake’s head, and on top of
this was carved a small dog or other animal in a sitting position. To
the hook was attached a Bible in a small clasp. It was amusing to see
men rob the horses’ manes and tails to get the horsehair. These horses
pulled the wagons that hauled the wood and commissaries inside the
prison. Finally the horses were about to lose their hair appendages,
and a guard was sent with each wagon.

[Illustration: THE BURIAL OF THE DEAD.]

The authorities at Elmira had an admirable system regarding the burial
of the dead, and I have said that the care of the dead was better than
that bestowed on the living. When a prisoner died, his name, company,
and regiment were written on a slip of paper and pinned on the lapel
of his coat. If he did not have a coat, it was pinned on his vest; and
if the vest was gone, then it was pinned on the shirt. The body was
removed to a house called the dead house, a building some thirty by
forty feet in size. In this building were a large lot of boxes made
out of poplar, not coffin-shaped, but straight boxes that resembled
gun boxes; and into the box the body was deposited. On the lid of
the box was nailed a headboard. The inscription was removed from the
body, and copied in large letters—the name, company, regiment, and
the date of death of deceased. The inscription was then put into a
dry mineral-water bottle, corked perfectly tight, and placed under
the armpit. Each grave was numbered, and an alphabetically arranged
book kept in which the names were entered, and opposite the names
were the numbers of the graves. In 1901 I stood by the graves of two
thousand nine hundred and seventeen of our dead, and time had swept
away each wooden headboard, but by digging into the graves I could have
identified each body by the inscription in the mineral-water bottles.

From January 25 to January 29, 1865, there is not an entry in my diary.
On the 29th of January, 1865, I find this entry: “On January 25, 1865,
I was sent to the smallpox hospital, and returned on January 29, and
the boys were all glad to see me.” My experience as a smallpox patient
was very trying. I was taken with a severe chill, with pains in my
spine and back of my head. Comrade Stokely Jacobs, now living near
Murfreesboro, was my bunkmate, and he was suspicious of my case, and
kept me hid from the doctor. Stokely says that I was delirious for two
days, and climbing up and down the bunk. When I came to myself, I was
out calling the roll of the ward. I noticed that my hands were badly
pimpled, but as we did not have a mirror I could not see my face.
Before I finished the roll call along came Dr. Burchard, one of the
prison surgeons. I have often wondered if this was the Dr. Burchard,
author of “Rum, Romanism, and Rebellion,” that helped dig the political
grave of Mr. Blaine. The Doctor looked at me and said: “Toney, you
have the smallpox.” “No, Doctor,” I replied; “I have had a case of
varioloid, and the fever has left me, and I cannot communicate smallpox
to the other prisoners; besides, Doctor, let me show you”; and I pulled
off my coat, rolled up my sleeve, and exposed a perfect scar. “Now you
know, Doctor, that I have not got the smallpox.” He said that I was not
a physician and not competent to diagnose my own case, and that I must
go at once, without further parleying.

The cold was below zero, and the hospital was across a little lake
inside the prison walls, and the patients were in A tents—_i. e._,
tents shaped as the letter A, and having a capacity of three patients
each. I walked across the lake on the ice, and commenced my search
at the head of the row of tents, trying to find some bedfellows who
had as light an attack as mine. Nearly all the tents were filled with
patients who had the confluent type, but finally I found a tent with
two patients—one very bad and the other lighter—and I crawled in.

We did not see a doctor while there, but once a day a waiter brought
us some tea and bread. As the hospital was some distance from the
cook house, and the weather below zero, the tea was cold when it
reached us. My bedfellows could not eat or drink anything, and I had
all the rations, yet I could not get enough. The second night one of
our bedfellows died, and all the vermin came to us, and we had plenty
of company. The vermin will leave a body as soon as it gets cold. We
had about eight blankets, but could not keep warm; and to make the
situation worse, the men who died were dragged out and left in front of
the tents, and in whatever position a man was when death overtook him
in that position he froze. Some with arms and legs extended presented a
horrible sight.

On the 29th of January, so my diary reads, I was ordered to the cook
house for a bath, and my nice suit of gray was burned; and as the
authorities did not keep any uniforms of gray, I donned a suit of blue,
so in the picture I do not resemble “the boy in gray.” I buttoned up
my coat and was feeling comfortable as “the boy in blue,” when the
sergeant, who was robing me, took out his knife and commenced to cut
off my skirt. “Hold on, sergeant,” I said; “don’t disfigure my uniform
in that manner.” He continued to cut until my skirt was gone, and then
replied: “If I had left that frock intact, you might have walked out as
one of our guards.” And I guess I would have attempted it.

The fever had left my eyes in bad condition, and I went to the sutler
and bought a pair of green-goggle spectacles, which materially changed
my appearance; so when I reached Ward Thirty-six I jumped in the door
and yelled, “Attention!” The boys quickly fell in line, hats in hand,
thinking I was the Federal sergeant on an inspection. As I started down
the center to inspect the line they grabbed and hugged me, for when I
left for the hospital many thought that they would not see me again,
because they had heard of so many deaths there.

[Illustration: FROM SMALLPOX HOSPITAL.]

Whenever there was any news favorable to the Federals, it was
bulletined on the inside; but of course the unfavorable news we did not
hear. So on April 10, 1865, was bulletined the surrender of General
Lee. On referring to my diary on April 10, 1865, I find: “This is a
dark day for us, and the officers celebrated by getting drunk.”

[Illustration: SURRENDER OF GENERAL LEE.]

As it is well known, the surrender took place at Appomattox Courthouse
April 9, 1865, and the capitulation papers were signed in the McLean
homestead the next day. General Grant was accompanied by two of his
staff and General Lee by Colonel Marshall, of his staff, and in the
picture General Lee is in the act of signing the papers. The McLean
homestead is about ten miles from where I was born, and some years ago
a Northern capitalist bought the house, tore it down, and intended to
transport it to Chicago to become an adjunct to the old Libby prison as
a war museum; but the Libby prison venture failed, as it should have
failed, and the McLean homestead at last accounts was in Appomattox,
packed in sections ready for transportation to Chicago. I will say here
that the Libby prison erected at Chicago was intended not so much as
a monument to the inhumanity of the Southern people as it was to fill
some enterprising citizens’ pockets with the shekels.

I read from my diary previous to the surrender of General Lee that I
saw a number of prisoners at headquarters making application to take
the oath; these men were called “oath-takers,” and they were ostracized
by the men who were standing by their convictions of right. We had more
respect for the men who stood guard over us than for these oath-takers.
They were the men who reported to the commandants of the prison any
infractions of the rules, thinking thereby to gain favor with the
Federal authorities; but they were mistaken, because Colonel Beall,
Major Colt, Captain Brady, and Major Richmond, Federal officers of the
prison, had very little respect for them, and very properly so.

Referring to my diary April 15, 1865, I find this: “This has been
another dark day for us. About eight o’clock in the morning the news
flashed through the prison, ‘President Abraham Lincoln assassinated
by a Rebel.’” Immediately after hearing this, one indiscreet prisoner
yelled out, “It is a good thing; old Abe ought to have been killed
long ago!” The guards immediately rushed on him, and I thought that
he would get the bayonet; but they trotted him to the headquarters of
Colonel Beall, who ordered him tied up by the thumbs. This is a very
cruel mode of punishment. A man is tied by the thumbs and pulled up
till he is on his tiptoes, and there is no way to relieve the pressure.
If he tries to relieve the thumbs, the toes get it; and if the toes
are relieved, the thumbs are in trouble. In a very short time he will
faint, and is then cut down.

[Illustration: TIED UP BY THE THUMBS.]

April 15, 1865, appeared as if pandemonium had broken loose; the guards
were excited, and we did not know but that some of us would get shot
or the bayonet. No one sympathized with the fellow tied up, because
he jeopardized so many lives. I believe the artillery would have been
turned on us but for the guards who were stationed throughout the camp.
Looking back to the scene, I believe it very unfortunate for the South
that President Lincoln was assassinated. I do not believe we would have
had the five years of carpetbag rule and other troubles incident to the
reconstruction policy adopted by the government. I believe President
Lincoln would have said: “The South has made a mistake in secession;
and you have not seceded, because you cannot draw an imaginary line
separating this country. We are Americans; let us be friends and
brothers again.”

Of course we were uncertain as to our fate, and would have felt easier
if President Lincoln rather than President Johnson had been guiding the
affairs of the nation, for the reason that we knew President Johnson
hated and had no use for Rebels or, as he called them, “secessionists.”
However, on our return home we had the pleasure of meeting him, and
to know him was to love him; and before he was elected to the United
States Senate he had won many friends, who at one time had cordially
hated him. Once upon a visit to Greeneville, Tenn., I went from the
little, insignificant tailor shop of A. Johnson to the handsome
monument on the hill, and I thought of the possibilities of the
American youth.

On April 24, 1865, we had sergeant’s call, and upon assembling at
headquarters directions were read from the Secretary of War to furnish:

1. A list of those who were citizens.

2. The names of those who had made application to take the oath of
allegiance previous to the surrender of General Lee.

3. A list of those who had not made application to take the oath.

4. A list of those who refused to take the oath of allegiance.

In making out the list of my ward, No. 36, I gave the names of seven
who refused to take the oath. In regard to the first order, with
reference to citizens, many prisons contained citizens who were called
“butternuts,” who sympathized with the South, and sometimes uttered
treasonable sentiments.

On May 24, 1865, a new form of oath was received in camp, to which all
must subscribe before leaving. This delayed the release of the boys.

On June 7, 1865, my diary reads: “The New York _Herald_ says: ‘Orders
will soon be issued to release all prisoners below the rank of major
who will take the oath of allegiance.’” On June 8, 1865, orders were
received to release all privates who would take the oath. The prison
rules were now relaxed, and visitors could come and go with all
liberty; and the prison was kept pretty lively in the daytime, and the
boys did a fine business selling rings and other trinkets, and took in
quite a lot of shinplasters and five- and ten-cent pieces of silver.

[Illustration: HOMEWARD BOUND.]

There were twenty-eight men who hesitated about taking the oath. They
felt that they would perjure themselves, as they had taken the oath
of allegiance to the Southern Confederacy. The month of July was
near, and there were two hundred and fifty-one sick prisoners in the
hospitals who could not be moved and were not in condition to take the
oath. Colonel Beall was anxious to close the prison, and we asked him
what he would do with the twenty-eight who refused to take the oath.
He said that he would send us to Dry Tortugas to die of yellow fever.
About that time I received a letter and money from Judge Whitworth,
and the letter said that I had better come home and go to work, and I
had begun to think before the letter came that it would be the best
thing to do. So the twenty-eight subscribed to the oath, and were at
the depot waiting for the train when an enterprising photographer set
up his camera and said: “Boys, you should take a picture home to show
the folks how you looked the day you got out of prison. I will charge
you only a quarter.” I told him to fire away. I was the only one of the
twenty-eight that had a quarter, and I took the center of the group. I
was clad in a light hat and a linen duster. After getting out of prison
I first went to a restaurant and then to a clothing store, and fixed
myself for traveling. I got a shave also, the first one in many months.

The effect of the prison diet can be seen in the faces of the men. One
has lost his teeth and has his jaw tied up with a rag, another is as
pale as a ghost, and several of them are very dark. One poor fellow
can be seen on the right with a blanket twisted and thrown around
him; he is too weak to stand, and is sitting down. The bad effect
produced on the men is called scurvy, and is caused by eating salt
pork. I am standing in the center, and weighed about one hundred and
eighty pounds. If the tintype picture would show color, I would appear
as rosy as a young lady. Colonel Beall had given me transportation
to Louisville for each of the boys, and I said: “Boys, you must keep
close to me; if you straggle off, you will have to walk home.” The Big
Four had not then been completed to Cincinnati, nor the Louisville
and Nashville from Cincinnati to Louisville, so we had to go via
Indianapolis, at which point we missed connection, and I took the squad
around the city sight-seeing.

There were many of the boys in blue with guns. It appeared to me as an
army post. As we were strolling a squad of Union soldiers, recognizing
us as the boys in gray, commenced singing, “Hang Jeff Davis on a sour
apple tree.” As we approached they continued to sing, and I yelled
out, “Why not hang some of the privates?” They replied with an oath
that they would hang us, and started toward our group, when I said:
“Come on, boys; it is train time.” And we did not get hanged.

[Illustration: SURVIVORS OF CO. B, ROCK CITY GUARDS.]

It can also be noticed in the picture that one of the boys had captured
a blue army vest, over which he wears a gray coat. Another one has a
cotton haversack supported by a cotton string, to which is attached a
tin cup. He is supposed to be on the lookout for buttermilk, coffee,
or probably something stronger. The old slouched hats that had seen
hard service were quite noticeable. The picture is unique and
antique—unique as the only one ever taken of the group, and antique in
being over forty years of age.

Here is another picture over forty years of age, the survivors of
Company B, Rock City Guards, taken in August, 1865. Where are the one
hundred and four who marched out so gayly from the old Academy in 1861,
when the bands were playing “The Girl I Left Behind Me”? Seventy-two
of them had filled soldiers’ graves; thirty-two had returned to their
homes; and in August, 1865, they were much scattered, and we could get
together only seventeen, who are herewith produced.




CHAPTER XI.

THE PRIVATIONS OF A CITIZEN.


On reaching home we found change written upon everything. During
our four years and three months’ absence the city government was in
control of aliens or carpetbaggers who ground out checks and bonds
with a lavish hand. After paying my last fifty cents for dinner at the
Commercial Hotel, I borrowed five cents from a friend, and proceeded
across the ferry, which was just above the Louisville and Nashville
Railroad bridge. I trudged along the White’s Creek pike and finally
stopped and tried to locate myself. When I left home, the whole country
around Edgefield was a vast forest of large poplars, sweet-gum,
hackberry, hickory, and walnut. There never was a country that produced
such fine and diversified timber as this. It was all gone, and the
stumps dug up. I looked for the old homestead, and found a dilapidated
house that resembled it; the weatherboarding had been stripped off
for some distance, and not a piece of fence was in sight. The trees
my mother planted in 1845, the year before she died, were all gone. I
walked near the old house, where some mulatto children were playing on
the porch. I stopped to look at them, but could not recognize them.
Presently a white woman came out on the porch, and I said, “Who are
you?” She replied, “I am Jim’s wife.” I saw at once that she was a
Northern woman. The “Jim” she had reference to was one of my former
faithful slaves. As soon as I got one dollar and twenty-five cents, I
went before Mr. R. McPhail Smith and took the amnesty oath, and Jim
and his wife had to vamoose the ranch. I trudged along for four miles
farther to the home of Judge Whitworth, on the Brick Church turnpike,
which I reached early in the evening. The family were all glad to see
me; and after supper, feeling very tired, I went to the office room to
bed, but could not sleep. Man is a creature of habit, and I had been
so used to sleeping on a hard surface that I got up, took a quilt, and
slept well in the front yard under the apple trees. James, George, and
Leonard followed me, and it was nearly a month before I got used to a
bed.

After helping on the farm for a month I came to the city and went
to work for the Express Company. No one who had participated in the
war on the Southern side could vote. In order to vote, a man had to
subscribe to an oath that he had not aided, abetted, or sympathized
with secession. Of course that disfranchised nearly all of the whites,
and no one could vote save carpetbaggers and the colored population.
Those who had real estate at that time, in addition to the city,
county, and state tax, had a special tax to pay on the Edgefield and
Kentucky and the Tennessee and Pacific Railway. So we had taxation
without representation. The city was in the hands of a military post
and metropolitan police; the railroads were United States military
roads, and were managed by superintendents. It took nearly the entire
police force to look after the lawless soldiers, who would rob and in
some instances murder inoffensive citizens. We had no law or order;
everything was in a chaotic state. In the meantime the Kuklux Klan and
Palefaces were a law unto themselves. The object of the Kuklux Klan
was a laudable one. It was to intimidate the evil doer and to protect
the weak against the strong. No one knew who the Grand Cyclops was
unless he recognized his voice in the giving of the oath, as it was
administered in a deep guttural voice, and with hoodwink. The Palefaces
were auxiliaries of the Kuklux, and were composed of young men who
were too young to go in the war of 1861. Any Kuklux could join the
Palefaces. Their mode of initiation was quite tragic. A large tent
was in the hall room, and a sentinel paced to and fro; near by was a
gallows, and before the initiate was to be hanged there was a terrible
scuffling and firing of pistols. This was done to try the mettle of the
young candidate. The Kuklux ceremony was quite tame compared with that
of the Palefaces. The Kuklux Klan were supposed to have been tried by
the fires of battle, and no other kind of firing was required in their
initiation. I recollect five meeting places: in the powder magazine
of Fort Negley; Masonic Temple; under the Olympic Theater; a store
on Market Street; and over Evans, Fite, Porter, and Company’s store.
Those serving as Grand Cyclops were Player Martin, E. R. Richardson,
Frank Anderson, Captain John W. Morton; and Judge J. H. Hales, of the
Palefaces. There were about four thousand of the Kuklux and Palefaces
in the city and county. Each Klan had a Grand Cyclops, but many of
their names I have forgotten. I never heard of a large procession of
Kuklux riding through our city intimidating the metropolitan police.
There were some eighteen in the squad, and they were not trying to
intimidate the police. On the other hand, I have always thought that
the Kuklux Klan were auxiliaries to the police in suppressing crime.
Columbia and Pulaski would sometimes have a horseback procession of one
hundred and fifty or two hundred horsemen, the men all heavily gowned
and the horses’ hoofs muffled; and they presented quite a weird troop
as they noiselessly marched through the towns, which would strike awe
to the evil doers. It was not done especially to intimidate the blacks,
but whites as well, if guilty of wrongdoing. The blacks who behaved
themselves had the best of friends in the Kuklux Klan. I never heard
of but two deeds of violence in our community during the existence of
the Klan. One was that of a white man who was mistreating his wife. The
Klan to which Captain P. M. Griffin belonged took the man out, gave him
a good whipping, and sent him home. The man afterwards always behaved
himself, and I think he died a good citizen. The Klans were located in
all parts of the city and country, and kept up with their neighbors’
doings. When a man was doing wrong a note saying “Beware,” and signed
“Kuklux Klan,” was enough. The fellow’s guilty conscience would say, “I
am the man,” and thus a reformation in his conduct would take place.
So I have always maintained that the Klans were great conservators of
law and order. The next deed of violence was the case of Mr. Barmore,
of Indianapolis. It was said that Governor Brownlow had offered a large
reward to any one who would ferret out the Klan, and Mr. Barmore came
to Nashville. He soon called at the Express office for a package, and
I asked for identification, and he brought in Mr. Sparling, who was
at that time agent for the Knickerbocker Life Insurance Company. Mr.
Barmore would have attracted attention anywhere. He was a man of fine
physique, and dressed very conspicuously for a detective. He wore a
fur cap, velvet jacket and trousers, high-top patent leather boots
with trousers stuffed in boot-legs, and carried under his arm a large
silver-mounted cane. After his first introduction he frequently called
at the office for packages, and talked with me, but never mentioned the
Kuklux Klan, although he knew that I had been in the Confederate army.
One day he went to Columbia, and the Klan gave him a mock and asked
him not to come to that section any more. A few weeks later he was in
Pulaski, but did not get any information, and left on the train for
Nashville. The Pulaski Klan wired Columbia: “Barmore is on the train.”
Four men in Columbia bought tickets to Godwin, and took seats near
Barmore. I think Pitts Brown was the conductor. Just before Duck River
bridge was reached one of the men pulled the bell cord and said to
Barmore: “We want you.” They carried him below the turnpike bridge, put
a rope around his neck, and, notwithstanding his plea for mercy, they
deposited his body in Duck River.

In 1870 our franchise was restored while D. W. C. Senter was Governor,
and the Kuklux Klan was disbanded forever.

Another great privation, and I shall have finished. On December 4,
1868, I was returning home from Cincinnati on the steamer _United
States_. It was a cold, stormy night, and there were thirty barrels of
coal oil on the bow. At 11:20 the _America_ collided with our steamer,
knocking a large hole in the bow, igniting the coal oil, and the vessel
commenced to burn and sink at the same time. We had a large passenger
list, one hundred and thirty of whom were lost. As soon as I felt the
shock of the collision I rushed up to the hurricane roof to see what
had struck our boat. I saw the _America_ standing out between us and
the shore, and there was no sign of fire about her except the lights
from the cabin. From the light of our fire I read her name distinctly.
I ran at once to the ladies’ cabin and said to James W. McFerrin and
wife: “Get out on the guards quick; the _America_ will save us.” I then
hurried back to my stateroom, which was near the office, to get my
watch and money. When I came out of my room, the vessel was afire from
stem to stern, and on account of the dense coal oil smoke I came near
suffocating, and had to crawl some one hundred and fifty feet to the
ladies’ cabin, where all was in great confusion. Mothers were calling
for husbands and children, husbands shrieking for wives and children.
In all my privations in life I have never witnessed such a heartrending
scene, and I was powerless to aid any one. When I reached the outer
guard, aft of the wheel-house and near where I left Mr. McFerrin and
wife, the bow of the _America_ was passing by, and the fire was nearly
to the top of her chimneys. I started to jump on the stageplank space,
but all around were burning piles of baled hay. As soon as her bow
passed I took a plunge, and went down, I suppose, about twelve feet;
and when I struck the bottom, I shot up like a rocket, and struck out
for the shore, which I soon reached. But I got very cold when a few
feet up the bank, and could go no farther. I had on nothing but my
underclothes, and but for a flatboatman who carried me on his back
about two hundred yards to the burning _America_, I believe I would
have succumbed to the cold. On my berth that night was my Baltimore
overcoat, which I had worn in General Lee’s army and had sent to
relatives in Virginia before the Wilderness campaign. My relatives had
forwarded it to me at Nashville in the fall of 1865, and it was lost in
that terrible holocaust; but I was glad to get out.

I was sick for quite a while after the wreck, and the doctor said that
one of my lungs was involved; but I said, “Doctor, I am too young a man
to give up so early;” and I have been leading an active life to this
date (December 3, 1906).




CHAPTER XII.

A UNITED CITIZENSHIP.


When the reconstruction of the Southern states had been accomplished
by our representatives taking their seats in the halls of legislation,
we felt that we were again a part of this great nation. The South then
started on an era of prosperity; it was not the new South, but the old
South, with new life infused into it. We had been slaves to our slaves,
and now we were freemen, as the yoke of slavery had been lifted from
our necks. Whatever of bitterness had been felt was fast disappearing;
in fact, there was always less prejudice between the men who fought
each other than by the noncombatants of both sides. Between the old
soldiers it was as with the schoolboys—one a stalwart, the other a
weakling—engaging in a fight. The stalwart overpowers the puny one, and
feels sorry, and they make up, and are faster friends than before. Such
was the case with many of the boys in blue, who said: “We fought you
with all the Americans we could muster, and then gave bounty to all the
foreigners we could get, and also armed many of your former slaves to
fight. We overpowered you, boys, and are sorry for it.” And you know
sympathy begets love, and that is why the boys in blue, when we go
north of the river and attend their camp fires, make us welcome guests.
Some of them felt so sorry for us that they suggested that we ought to
receive pensions, and when the matter was agitated in certain sections
the bivouacs of the South were _unanimous_ in repudiating it. We have
condemned pensions, except in cases of disability, because it discounts
patriotism; and a Southern soldier who deserted his flag and joined the
enemy and now receives a pension is getting a premium on perjury.

When the Spanish-American War came on, the men of the blue and the men
of the gray stood shoulder to shoulder, the sons of the men who wore
the blue and the gray in 1861-65 marched step with step, and won the
victory that made us feel proud that we were Americans. Our country was
thus cemented as never before, and prejudices gave way to an era of
good feeling throughout this Union.

I wish that every American citizen could have been with comrade S. A.
Cunningham and me and witnessed the unveiling of the bronze statue
erected to the memory of the private Confederate soldier over the
graves of our two thousand two hundred and sixty dead at Camp Chase,
near Columbus, Ohio, June 14, 1902. The history of the monument is as
follows: Colonel W. H. Knauss was a member of a Pennsylvania regiment,
and was badly wounded at Fredericksburg, Va., the wound being so severe
that the surgeons said he could not recover, and he was unconscious for
some weeks. He finally recovered, and after the war moved to Columbus,
Ohio, and engaged in the real estate business. Soon after he reached
Columbus he commenced to look after the graves of our two thousand two
hundred and sixty dead at Camp Chase, four miles from Columbus. He
found the graves in a common overgrown with bushes and weeds, which
he soon had cut and the ground put in good shape, and asked Governor
Foraker to recommend to the Legislature an appropriation of $4,000,
which was made, and the cemetery was inclosed in a substantial fence.
Colonel Knauss then got an oval stone which, I think, would weigh about
two tons. On this stone he inscribed: “Two thousand two hundred and
sixty Confederate soldiers buried here; died in Camp Chase Prison,
1861-65.” He then commenced to send appeals to the South each June,
and he called public meetings of G. A. R. men, the Daughters of the
Confederacy, the Bivouacs and Daughters of the Grand Army Circle, and
he put these combined influences to work, and for years has had each
June a successful decoration. He then conceived the idea of erecting a
monument to the private Confederate soldier, and he had all his plans
made, and approached Mr. W. H. Harrison, a wealthy manufacturer of
Columbus, and said: “Mr. Harrison, here are the plans for the monument.
These men fought for what they thought was right, and were as much
entitled to their opinions as I was to mine, and they died away from
home and among strangers and foes.” Mr. Harrison was so struck with
Colonel Knauss’s enthusiasm that he said: “Build the monument according
to your plans, and send me the bill.”

Therefore, on that bright June day was assembled a vast multitude of
citizens, Grand Army men, and ex-Confederates. A special train was run
from Charleston, W. Va., bringing the boys in gray and their families
to the unveiling. We met and clasped hands with Governor Nash and
Judge Pugh, both of whom had followed General Grant at Vicksburg. We
were accorded a place on the programme, and followed Governor Nash
and Judge Pugh, and spoke in the uniform of Company B, Confederate
Veterans, and did our best to picture the deeds of the boys in gray. On
the platform with us were the Daughters of the Confederacy and Grand
Army Circle. We could not tell one from the other so far as enthusiasm
went. We did recognize them, however, from their badges. Just before
the service commenced Colonel Knauss came to each of the Confederates
on the platform and whispered: “Boys, when the veil is removed from
the statue, I want you to give us the old-fashioned Rebel yell.” So
we did our best, and the entire throng appeared to enjoy it. We heard
the Ohio State Band play “Dixie”; we saw the Ohio State Guards fire a
volley over the graves of our dead; we saw the statue standing out like
a life figure. The monument had two bases, each starting out on a side
of the oval rock, about nine feet high, joined together by an arch.
On the arch was inscribed “Americans”: I guess Colonel Knauss did not
wish to offend any over-sensitive people by calling them Confederates.
On the apex of the arch was the bronze figure of the boy in gray. It
was typical of the Confederate private: the empty haversack, the full
canteen; the old blanket twisted, tied at both ends, and thrown around
the shoulders: trousers stuffed in socks, and shoes well-nigh worn out.
He was standing at order arms, and his body was facing his Southland.
When I saw this statue I thought of William Stewart Hawkins, the
author of “Behind Prison Bars,” a volume he wrote in Camp Chase. Many
will recollect his “Letter that Came Too Late.” He died in Nashville
November 5, 1865, of the seeds of disease sown in Camp Chase. His last
verses were written a few days after the surrender of General Lee, and
were written behind prison bars as he looked out upon the graves of the
two thousand two hundred and sixty dead, who preceded him only a short
while. The lines were entitled “Defeated Valor”:

    Sleep sweetly in your humble graves;
      Sleep, martyrs of a fallen cause;
    Though yet no marble column craves
      The pilgrim here to pause.

    In the seeds of laurel in the earth
      The blossom of your fame is blown;
    And somewhere, waiting for its birth,
      The shaft is in the stone.




CHAPTER XIII.

RETROSPECTION.


Looking back to the events of the past, I have often thought, “All
things work together for good.” But for the Civil War, we would not
have had the remarkable scene between President McKinley and General
Joe Wheeler, when General Wheeler said: “Mr. President, I drew my sword
to help disrupt this Union; I want now to draw it to help cement it.”
And General Joe Wheeler was commissioned as a United States general,
and became the hero of San Juan Hill. But for the Civil War, we would
not have had a Sam Davis. But for the Civil War, there would not have
developed in the South the noble womanhood that made our history so
illustrious—a womanhood that endured so many sacrifices in giving aid
and sympathy to the soldier boys that inspired “the thin gray line”
to maintain the struggle against odds much beyond its strength. There
should be many monuments in the South to our noble women. But for the
Civil War, we would not have had a Henry Wirz, who went to the scaffold
rather than tell a lie. But for the Civil War, I might not have been a
Mason and the humble instrument in the hands of my brethren in helping
to build the Masonic Widows’ and Orphans’ Home.

In a previous chapter I said that Major H. G. O. Weymouth, who
commanded the Prison Camp at Point Lookout, was a Mason; and the
following correspondence will explain:

    NASHVILLE, TENN., Aug. 13th, 1892.

  _Editor Herald, Boston, Mass._: While in your busy city a few days
  ago, in looking over the _Boston Herald_ I saw the name East Weymouth
  (referring to one of your suburbs), and I wondered if this town was
  any kin to Major H. G. O. Weymouth, who commanded the Prison Camp,
  Point Lookout, Md., back in 1864. I was a prisoner there. Major
  Weymouth was a Mason, and allowed the Masons who were prisoners
  there to make an appeal to the Masons of Baltimore for clothing; and
  he distributed it to them. If Major Weymouth is in the land of the
  living, I would like to grasp him by the hand.

    MARCUS B. TONEY.

    BOSTON, Aug. 17th, 1892.

    MARCUS B. TONEY, Nashville, Tenn.

  _Dear Sir and Bro._: Yours of the 13th inst. to _Boston Herald_ read,
  and I well remember the occurrence as stated by you; and whenever you
  come this way I would reciprocate by grasping you by the hand. I live
  at 15 Beech Street, Cambridge, Mass., and wish to meet you at my home.

    Yours fraternally,        H. G. O. WEYMOUTH.

I saw Major Weymouth at the United States customhouse in Boston, July
14, 1905, and had quite a chat with him. I said if the South had gained
her independence it would have been a crime to have hanged him for
the shooting of our prisoners by the negro guards, for the boys had
transgressed the rules by getting on the dead line or talking after
taps; yet all will admit that the offenses did not merit such awful
penalties. Major Weymouth said I was right. He cursed the negroes, and
said he could not control them. He did all he could by relieving them
from duty. In response to my request for his photo, the Major sent
one which was taken at Point Lookout in April, 1864, and the following
letter:

    15 BEECH ST., CAMBRIDGE, MASS., July 25, 1906.

  _Dear Brother Toney_: Enclosed please find photograph. I was
  pleased to hear from you, and should like to have you send me your
  “Reminiscences” as soon as you complete them, as they must be very
  interesting to all the survivors of your acquaintance during the war.
  Occasionally some of our Southern ex-prisoners of war come to see
  me—one from Hayes’s Battery, New Orleans, but a few weeks ago. When
  you come to Boston, don’t fail to come and see me.

    Faithfully yours,      H. G. O. WEYMOUTH.

[Illustration: MAJOR H. G. O. WEYMOUTH.]

I have also said that Major Henry Wirz, the Southern commander at the
Andersonville (Ga.) prison, was a Mason, and cited the testimony of Mr.
W. E. Oakley, of Nashville, Tenn. (who was a prisoner there from Ohio),
that Major Wirz was not a cruel man, and performed the burial service
over the Masons there.

The hanging of Major Wirz was very sad. He was tried by a military
commission, or rather drumhead court-martial, the main charges being an
effort to starve the prisoners, and also the issuing of impure virus
with which to vaccinate them. In the testimony used to convict Major
Wirz were affidavits from bounty jumpers, thugs, and coffee-boilers. So
notorious had been the actions of some of these men in Andersonville
prison that six of them were hanged by their own soldiers.

Surgeon James Jones, who was eminent in his profession, and a resident
of Nashville for quite a while after the war, made an exhaustive
report in regard to the sanitary condition of Andersonville prison.
The military commission captured this report and mutilated and garbled
it so that it was used in evidence to convict poor Wirz, though
there was nothing in the original report of Surgeon Jones to fix the
responsibility of the condition of affairs on the accused. It is well
known that the prisoners fared better than the soldiers in General
Lee’s army, who in 1864 were reduced to a quart of meal, and sometimes
to a pint, per day.

Father Boyle, the Catholic priest who attended Henry Wirz, said that
on the night before the execution two men called and went into the
cell, and he thought they came to bring a reprieve. After they retired
he went to see Wirz, and was surprised when Wirz told him that the
men had offered him freedom if he would implicate Jefferson Davis in
a conspiracy to starve the prisoners. Wirz told them he did not know
Jefferson Davis, nor had he ever received any communication from him,
and he _would die before he would tell a lie_. And the poor fellow went
to the scaffold as a martyr to the truth.

In order that my young readers may know what I mean by bounty jumpers,
I will explain. They were mostly foreigners who came to this country,
on a promise of six hundred dollars, to enlist in the army. To men
who had not been earning over fifty cents a day this was a great
inducement. After enlisting and receiving the money, they deserted the
army, or jumped the bounty.

Now as to coffee-boilers. They were so called in the United States Army
because they remained in the rear and boiled coffee while the other
soldiers were at the front. In the Confederate Army we called such men
stragglers. We could not call them coffee-boilers, because after 1863
we did not have any coffee.

These were some of the men who testified against Major Wirz, a class of
men who were despised by the regular United States soldiers.


THE MASONIC WIDOWS’ AND ORPHANS’ HOME.

Coming down the steps of Cumberland Lodge one stormy night (December
27, 1886), I said to Brother W. H. Bumpas, “We must have a Masonic Home
in Tennessee.” He replied, “I will help you build it.” A few days
thereafter we had a set of rules and by-laws, which we presented to
the Grand Lodge on January 27, 1887. Under the by-laws no salaries or
commissions should be received for services. We showed the Grand Lodge
that our charity, scattered over the state and assisted by the various
lodges and the monthly allowance doled out to the widow and orphan,
rather encouraged dependence and did not educate the orphan and tended
to pauperize the widow; that the Home would be indeed a home to the
widow and a school to the children, and in this school the children
would be taught physically, morally, and intellectually, and be
prepared to take their places in the world as educated men and women;
and when they were able to maintain themselves they would take their
mothers from the Home, would set up housekeeping, and thus remove these
charges from the fraternity.

The Grand Lodge, by resolution, approved our plans and agreed to give
financial aid to the cause, and always contributed their surplus. The
Home was organized and chartered in 1887, with the following as charter
members: Marcus B. Toney, William H. Bumpas, James H. Collins, Wilbur
F. Foster, Ben Herman, Edward B. Stahlman, William K. McAllister. The
County Register, County Court Clerk, and Secretary of State remitted
the usual fees.

[Illustration: THE MASONIC HOME.]

One day while Colonel Jere Baxter was building Baxter Court, I
approached him and said: “Colonel Baxter, we are seeking a site for the
Masonic Widows’ and Orphans’ Home, and Mr. Joseph H. Ambrose wishes
to sell his place near Maplewood, and as you wish to know who your
neighbors are, we would like you to purchase and give it to us.” He
looked at me a moment, and said: “I have just as good if not a better
location in the Maplewood tract. Send your committee out and select,
and I will make a deed of gift.” This he did a few days after, and the
property was deeded to the above trustees in behalf of the fraternity
of the state, Noble, generous Jere Baxter! I wish he could have lived
longer, to witness the fruits of his gift.

June 24, 1888, the corner stone was laid, Brother Grand Master H. H.
Ingersoll officiating. December 10, 1892, the building was ready for a
limited number, and we ordered two families from East Tennessee and one
family from West Tennessee. June 24, 1893, the building was dedicated
by Grand Master Henry A. Chambers, and there was a special train from
Louisville over the Louisville and Nashville road bringing a large
delegation of Knights Templars and ladies; and they enjoyed a splendid
barbecue prepared by our wives, sweethearts, and daughters.

In 1894 the Home had increased to ninety-two members, and in 1895
to one hundred and thirty inmates. We had to depend on voluntary
contributions from our members, and the assistance of the Grand Lodge,
which was always generous, especially after the children had been
brought before them and demonstrated their good training.

Our wards were from every section of the state; and in order that each
Mason might contribute to its support and feel an individual interest
and individual ownership, our directors agreed to make an unconditional
deed of gift to the fraternity of the state, and naming the Grand
Lodge officers as trustees. The Grand Lodge accepted the property, and
the seven trustees who held the title of the property under the deed of
gift from Colonel Jere Baxter transferred their rights by deed of gift
to the Grand Lodge officers as aforesaid.

Since the opening of the Home, some two hundred boys and girls have
been educated, and are now employed in Nashville and vicinity, and are
proud of their _alma mater_. Six have married since leaving the Home,
and seven mothers have been taken from the Home by their children and
are now keeping house.


EDWARD WORSHAM.

In 1876 a bright, manly young man named Ed. Worsham was running out
of Memphis on the Louisville and Nashville Railroad as news agent. We
were attracted by the gentle bearing and urbane manners of the youth,
and offered him the position of agent of the Merchants’ Dispatch
Transportation Company, Memphis, which he filled to the satisfaction of
the company and its patrons.

Ed. rose very rapidly in Masonry, and in 1878 was Eminent Grand
Commander of Knights Templars of the state. The Grand Commandery met in
Nashville, May, 1878, and Grand Commander Worsham reviewed the parade
from a stand on the Square in front of the courthouse. Near him were
his mother and sister, who looked with great pride upon their son and
brother. Little did any of us then think that he would so soon pass
from us, as the following telegrams will show:

    NASHVILLE, TENN., Sept. 8, 1878.

    ED. WORSHAM, M. D. T. Co., Memphis, Tenn.:

  I see the yellow fever is epidemic in Memphis. Take such care of
  yourself as your general good health may demand.

    M. B. TONEY.

    MEMPHIS, TENN., Sept. 9, 1878.

    M. B. TONEY, M. D. T. Co., Nashville, Tenn.:

  Yours received. I went through the epidemic of 1873 on the Masonic
  Board of Relief. Have sent my mother and sister to the country, and I
  propose to hold the fort.

    ED. WORSHAM.

    MEMPHIS, TENN., Sept. 12, 1878.

    M. B. TONEY, Nashville, Tenn.:

  Brother Ed. Worsham died this evening with yellow fever.

    ANGEL S. MYERS.

    NASHVILLE, TENN., Sept. 13, 1878.

    O. B. SKINNER, Gen’l Manager M. D. T. Co., Cleveland,
    Ohio.:

  Our Agent at Memphis, Edward Worsham, died there yesterday with
  yellow fever. His was a noble sacrifice to the cause of humanity.

    M. B. TONEY.


SAM DAVIS.

I esteem it a great honor to have belonged to the First Tennessee
Regiment that had in its ranks so illustrious a private as Sam Davis.
His first education was from a pious mother, who instilled into
his mind that truth was a divine attribute. His early school days
were spent at his home near Smyrna, Tenn., and he was later sent to
the Military Institute at Nashville to finish the course. While at
Nashville the war cloud burst upon us, and he hastened to Murfreesboro
(which was eleven miles from his home) and joined the Rutherford Rifles
(Captain William Ledbetter), which was mustered in the First Tennessee
Regiment May 10, 1861, and became Company I. Captain Ledbetter was one
of the noblest captains in the Confederate States Army, and was devoted
to his men. Though he was of small stature and delicate frame, yet
I have seen him carrying the gun of a lame or sick private. Captain
Ledbetter lived till 1906, and left but few of old Company I behind him.

Sam Davis was a soldier full of adventure. Camp life was too tame for
him; he wanted to be on the picket line, or out as a scout, or in the
midst of the battle din. In all our campaigns under General Lee and
Stonewall Jackson, in which we marched some nine hundred miles, we
did not get into a fight, but got ambuscaded on Cheat Mountain, and
lost only a few men. So when we turned our faces toward Tennessee and
Fort Donelson, Sam Davis felt, as we all did, that we would soon be
in the fray; but delays previously mentioned prevented our getting
to the Fort, and when the left wing of the regiment reached Shiloh
Sam was satisfied that he would get into the action. He was detailed
to guard ordnance stores; but, not to be baffled, he gave a comrade
twenty dollars to take his place, and in the first day’s fight he was
wounded, but not seriously. He went into the second day’s engagement,
and succeeded in helping to drive the enemy to the river bluff. Many a
soldier with Sam Davis’s wound would have pleaded disability and gone
to the rear.

At Perryville, Ky., Sam was in the thickest of the fight, and came out
unharmed, though his company suffered severely. After a long, weary
march through Kentucky, East Tennessee, and back to Murfreesboro, Sam
was in the battle of Stone’s River. Our line of battle was only ten
miles from his mother’s home, and in the second day’s fight, when the
First Tennessee was gradually pressing the enemy back, he thought he
would soon see home and mother; but he was doomed to disappointment,
for the order came to fall back. General Rosecrans was also retreating
toward Nashville, yet General Bragg did not seem to know it, and
General Rosecrans took advantage of the situation and called a halt,
and then moved forward. We retired to Shelbyville, and had not been
there long before Sam’s brother, John G. Davis, who was a member of
Captain H. B. Shaw’s Scouts, came and got Sam detached for duty with
the Scouts: and in this service he was engaged when captured near
Pulaski and tried as a spy, and hanged November 27, 1863. He was
unjustly executed, as he was not a spy but a scout, and in addition
to watching and fighting the enemy was getting recruits for General
Bragg’s army.

I think Sam Davis was captured not far south of Lynnville. Captain
John Woldridge (the blind Confederate) was at his mother’s house when
Sam came to Lynnville and talked with Captain W., and the Captain
recognized his voice when Sam spoke. A few days afterwards Captain
Woldridge’s mother said, “John, what manly-looking young man were you
talking to yesterday?” Captain W. replied, “Sam Davis.” His mother
said, “He was hanged yesterday at Pulaski.”

When Sam Davis was captured he was clad in a Confederate uniform,
gray, and over it a Federal overcoat dyed brown. In one of his boots,
concealed by a false inside, were a number of letters addressed to
persons in the South; also a report from Captain Shaw to General Bragg,
giving the disposition of the Federal forces in Middle Tennessee,
including General Dodge’s troops stationed near Pulaski. Captain Shaw
was afterwards captured and placed in jail with Sam Davis, but in
giving his name said it was Coleman.

Among the documents found in Sam Davis’s boot was one which General
Dodge thought had been given him by one of the Federals; and the
General assured Sam if he would divulge the name of the informant he
would set him free. In reply the heroic prisoner said, “If I had a
thousand lives, I would give them all rather than betray a trust.” I am
glad that the Daughters of the Confederacy have erected a monument to
Sam Davis at Pulaski, and that it bears the above godlike inscription.

Mr. Will S. Ezell, of Pulaski, was a boy standing near the jail about
noon of November 27, 1863, and he said Sam Davis walked between the
guards with a firm step and noble mien, and mounted the wagon and
took a seat on his coffin with the utmost composure. On reaching the
scaffold, some one told him of the battle of Missionary Ridge, and he
replied, “The old First Tennessee must in future do their fighting
without me.” The Federal chaplain, Rev. James Young, prayed with Sam,
then removed his overcoat, the noose was adjusted, and the tragedy
closed. Some weeks afterwards Mr. John C. Kennedy obtained a permit
from General Rousseau, went to Pulaski, disinterred the body, and
brought it to his mother’s home, and it rests in the family burying
ground. Mr. Kennedy also retained the boot, which is now in the History
Building at Centennial Park, Nashville.

After the war Captain Shaw was very reticent as to his movements during
the conflict, yet he was unstinted in his praise of Sam Davis and his
many exploits in the field. On account of his association with Sam
Davis, he became peculiarly attached to his brother, John G. Davis;
they were to each other as Jonathan and David, and owned an interest in
the steamer _David White_, with Dan Kinney, of Nashville, as captain.
The _White_ blew up, February 17, 1867, on the lower Mississippi,
killing John Davis and Captain H. B. Shaw and badly scalding Captain
Kinney.

[Illustration: SAM DAVIS’S BOOT.]

At the close of the Centennial Exposition at Nashville in 1897,
President J. W. Thomas and Director General E. C. Lewis suggested and
recommended that the History Building and the Parthenon be preserved,
the History Building to be used as a depository for Confederate relics.

President J. W. Thomas was in the transportation department of the
Confederate States in 1861-65, and filled that position with diligence
and fidelity, as he afterwards managed a great corporation to the day
of his death. I loved him devotedly, and I learned from his secretary,
Mr. T. B. Clarkson, that his last official act was dictating and
signing his name to a communication to me.

[Illustration: HISTORY BUILDING, CENTENNIAL PARK.]

Major E. C. Lewis was a boy during the war, and witnessed the Fort
Donelson fight. His mother belonged to that noble hand of Southern
women who inspired the Confederate soldier to deeds of valor and
endurance.

The History Building in Centennial Park contains many Confederate
relics, and here may be seen Sam Davis’s boot from which was cut the
inner sole, disclosing the documents that led to his execution.


THE CARE OF CONFEDERATE GRAVES.

    NASHVILLE, June 11, 1902.

    HON. J. B. FORAKER, Cincinnati, Ohio.

  _Dear Sir_: While attending the unveiling exercises of the
  Confederate statue at Camp Chase, Ohio, a few days ago, I saw
  surrounding the Confederate Cemetery a substantial stone fence
  which I learned was built through your efforts, and I thought “one
  good turn deserves another,” and would ask if at the next session
  of Congress you would introduce a measure appropriating $200,000
  to suitably mark the resting places of my 24,456 comrades who were
  buried from Northern prisons in 1861-1865.

    Yours very truly,      MARCUS B. TONEY.

The bill was introduced as promised, and was finally passed in
February, 1906.

[Illustration: SENATOR J. B. FORAKER.]

A few months after I wrote Senator Foraker I met him in the office of
Judge H. H. Lurton, of the United States District Court of Appeals.
Judge Lurton said: “Senator Foraker, I was a resident of near Columbus,
Ohio, during the Civil War.” “Ah!” said the Senator; “whereabouts?”
The Judge replied: “At Camp Chase, where I was a prisoner of war. I
went in as a private, and the Federals promoted me to sergeant of a
mess.” Judge Lurton’s case illustrated the possibilities of American
youth—from a private soldier to the judgeship of the United States
District Court of Appeals, and Senator Foraker before him to argue as
chief attorney in so important a suit as the Northern Pacific Railway
case.


CAPTAIN D. JOBE

was another intrepid scout who met a violent and sudden death. His
family home was near Triune, Tenn., and his company operated in the
rear of General Rosecrans’s army, as did that of Captain Shaw. One day,
after being hotly pursued by the enemy, he reached his mother’s home
and ran in and threw his arms around her and said: “Mother, I am very
weary, and must have a little rest, yet I dare not tarry in the house
but will go up to yonder thick woods, will get a little needed rest,
and will come back and say good-by.” Poor fellow! he never returned to
his mother’s house. Riding up in the woods, he dismounted, tethered his
horse to graze, removed the saddle, of which he made a pillow on the
ground, and soon was taking the much-needed sleep. The enemy crept upon
him stealthily and shot him while he slept.

There was not a more gallant scout than Captain D. Jobe. All honor to
his memory.


THE FAITHFUL NEGROES.

So much has been written by Southern writers of the old uncles and
black mammies of the South that one would think the field had been
thrashed over. Yet there were different types of the old negroes, and
many of us had different experiences with them. My mother died at the
age of twenty-five. She was preceded by my three young sisters, and
soon after by my father. So mother’s maid became my black mammy, and
the love she bore mother seemed to be intensified, and concentrated
upon me. Sometimes she was cruel to her own children, but never put her
hand on me unkindly. When I started from my home in Edgefield, clad in
my uniform of gray and a big B on my cap, I called black mammy to say
good-by. She threw her arms around me and said: “Don’t let them Yankees
kill you. I am gwine to pray for you.” And before I reached the front
gate, she plucked off her old shoe and threw it at me.

There was a superstition among the old Virginia darkies that to give
good luck to those departing an old shoe must be thrown at them. (I
will say here in parenthesis that the Southern children of those days
imbibed some of the superstitions of their black mammies.) I don’t
believe my black mammy’s old shoe had anything to do with my return;
yet who knows but that through all the privations I have safely passed
black mammy’s prayer availed in my behalf? She lived to be fourscore
and six, and surrounded by her children and grandchildren, seeming to
forget them all in her last moments, she passed out with my name upon
her lips.

When I received notice to appear at the photographer’s in August,
1865, I said to old Uncle Ike, “My clothing is rather dilapidated.” He
replied, “I want you to look as well as any o’ dem, and I’ll fetch you
down my broadcloth coat.” And I am standing in the group of survivors
of Company B, Rock City Guards, the sixth man from the right, and the
best-dressed man in the group. Yet old Uncle Ike never thought of
social equality.

Many negroes went with their young masters to the front as cooks
and servants, and when freedom was offered them they declined,
preferring to remain as servants rather than to assume the cares and
responsibilities of freedom, which they thought might estrange them
from their masters.


COMPANY B, CONFEDERATE VETERANS.

In explanation of my picture in the frontispiece I would state that
in 1895 comrade William Aimison and I organized and recruited Company
B, Confederate Veterans, to the number of one hundred, in which are
represented some thirty-five Tennessee regiments, that took part in
the war of 1861-65. I was tendered an office, but declined, and chose
to enter as a private. I, however, was placed on the committee to name
the officers. We were soon after attached to the National Guards,
State of Tennessee, and wear a United States belt and cartridge box
and carry Springfield breech-loaders. I suppose in an emergency call
by the President or Governor we could muster sixty men for duty. Our
first parade was at the Richmond reunion in 1896, and the next in 1897
at Nashville. Since then the company has been in parade at all the
reunions.

[Illustration: MONROE GOOCH, CO. B, CONFEDERATE VETERANS.]

We received an invitation to the reunion of the Blue and Gray on
President McKinley’s day in Evansville, Ind., October 11, 1900.
Leaving here on the evening of the 10th, it was late in the night when
the Evansville and Terra Haute Railway switched our car containing
seventy-nine men to the Fair Grounds in Evansville. We found four
thousand Blues in camp, and when we marched in with fife and drum
to the tune of “Dixie,” there was not much sleep for the night. The
Blues crowded around us, and we spun out war stories till early in
the morning. Belonging to our company was Monroe Gooch, one of the
faithful negroes who went through the war—faithful to his trust. The
Blues had provided A tents, each serving four men. The committee did
not furnish a tent for Monroe Gooch, and I told him to crawl in with
some of the boys, making five in one tent. Next morning we had dress
parade at six o’clock, and as we wanted Monroe in it, we asked him to
sit at the breakfast table with the company. Four Indiana negroes were
cooking for each company, and I heard one of them say: “Look dar at dem
Southern folks; dey knows how to treat niggers; one eatin’ at table wid
’em.” Yet Monroe Gooch never thought of social equality.

The Cleveland Grays, the President’s Own as they were called, escorted
the President to the city, but in the parade the Cleveland Grays were
put aside and Company B, Confederate Veterans, given the post of honor;
and the programme committee of Evansville citizens did me the honor to
put me on the programme with the President, in an address to the Blue
and Gray.

There was a large reunion tent in the Fair Grounds, and any one who
wore the blue or gray ate and drank without money or price. After the
parade, we opened ranks and clasped hands with the Blues, their wives
and daughters. Four thousand Blues to eighty Grays gave us a good many
handclasps, and my right arm was tired for two weeks. We made a parade
through the streets of Evansville, and had one grand ovation all along
the line. I was gratified to see the city of Evansville decorated with
so many pictures containing three in a group—viz.: Generals Grant,
Lee, and Stonewall Jackson. At night Company B was entertained by the
Cleveland Grays, and the only complaint I made was that they gave some
of my men too much champagne.

It has been my good fortune to attend many reunions, but nowhere, not
even in our Southland, have we met with a more cordial reception than
in Evansville. The United Confederate Veteran reunions in the South are
so largely attended, and so many have to be entertained, that it is
difficult to reach them all. In Evansville we were the guests not only
of the city but of the four thousand Blues camped in the Fair Grounds.

I think it will be proper to close this volume with some verses by
Captain Harry L. Flash, of General Joe Wheeler’s staff in 1861-65. He
wished to go with General Wheeler to Cuba, but under the present army
regulations his age barred him:

    You who faced the boys in blue,
      (When like a storm they rose),
    And played with life and laughed at death
      Among such stalwart foes,
    Need never cast your eyes to earth
      Or bow your heads with shame—
    Though fortune frown, your names are down
      Upon the Roll of Fame.

    The flag you followed in the fight
      Will never float again—
    Thank God, it sank to endless rest
      Without a blot or stain!
    And in its place Old Glory rose
      With all its stars restored:
    And smiling Peace, with rapture, raised
      A pæan to the Lord.

    We love both flags—let smiles and tears
      Together hold their sway;
    One won our hearts in days agone—
      One owns our love to-day.
    We claim them both with all their wealth
      Of honor and of fame—
    One lives triumphant in the sun:
      And one a hallowed name.

    A few short years and “Yank” and “Reb”
      Beneath their native sod
    Will wait until the judgment day
      The calling voice of God—
    The Great Commander’s smile will beam
      On that enrollment day,
    Alike on him who wore the blue
      And him who wore the gray.




Transcriber’s Notes

pg 89 Changed: would have been hanged for the may crimes
           To: would have been hanged for the many crimes
pg 139 Changed: the Unted States Army because they remained
            To: the United States Army because they remained



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