IN NORTH CAROLINA.
After the wounding of the officers named in the foregoing chapter,
Col. Henry Ashby, of the Second Tennessee Cavalry, succeeded to
the position of major general of Hume’s Division; Col. Baxter Smith,
of the Fourth Tennessee Cavalry, to that of Col. Thomas Harrison’s
brigade; Adjt. George B. Guild, to that of Captain Sayers, as
adjutant general of the brigade; Maj. Scott Bledsoe, to the command
of the Fourth Tennessee; and Lieut. E. Crozier was made adjutant of
the Regiment.
The enemy did not pursue us at once, and the command passed on to
Fayetteville. We passed down the main street of the city and crossed
the bridge that spans the Cape Fear River. As we passed over the
bridge, I noticed that it had been rosined, and upon the other
side near the bridge I noticed several cannons that had been masked.
We were halted here. After a while we heard a considerable firing
of small arms. In a few moments General Hampton came dashing over
the bridge with a few cavalrymen trailing him. When he had crossed,
the bridge was ignited, and soon the flames mounted the large frame
structure, enveloping it in fire and smoke. A considerable number
of the enemy’s cavalry and infantry rushed down the street and into
the opening on the other side, which was the signal for the battery
to open upon them, which they did, rapidly throwing shells and
shot into the dense mass, causing a scattering, falling down, and
scrambling to get out of the way. It was too serious a matter to
laugh at, but it really was amusing. Dr. Jim Sayers, of Company C
of the Fourth Tennessee, was one of the squad that had come across
with General Hampton. When asked what the firing meant preceding
their coming over, he said that General Hampton had picked up about
a dozen soldiers who were following the command, and, placing them in
a turn of the street, awaited the coming of the advance guard of the
enemy; and when the enemy had approached near enough, General Hampton
and his men suddenly and unexpectedly dashed upon them with their
revolvers, emptying some saddles, scattering and rushing them back
upon the main line. He said that “General Hampton certainly killed
several of the enemy in the mêlée, besides others that were killed
or wounded.”
Upon leaving here, we marched toward Bentonville, N. C. Gen. Joseph
E. Johnston, who had been appointed commander in chief, had his
headquarters near here and was arranging and collecting his small
army to resist the advancing columns of the enemy, who seemed to be
headed that way from every quarter. The railroads had been torn up
in all directions, and the Army of Tennessee was arriving in small
detachments, traveling the distance from Corinth, Miss., partly on
foot and partly by rail. Many of the absentees from Hood’s campaign
in Tennessee were joining in small squads. Some of them were captured
in trying to cross the Tennessee, and some remained at home, giving
up the contest as lost.
Soon after reaching Bentonville General Wheeler was ordered to
Averyboro, N. C., to assist General Hardee. This took a day and
night’s march, if I remember rightly. General Hardee had taken
position there to resist a column of the enemy marching toward
Bentonville. Skirmishing was going on when we arrived upon the field.
While awaiting orders Private Liter Herndon, of Company G, came
up and asked permission to carry a battle flag that had been given
us by a lady friend who happened to be at Winnsboro, S. C., as we
passed through there a few weeks before. It was a beautiful flag of
fine material, said to have been made in Scotland. It was a Maltese
cross, with eleven stars forming the cross of St. Andrew. We thanked
the lady for the gift, promising her that it should be unfurled in
our next battle. Remembering this, I asked Colonel Smith and his
inspector general, Capt. J. R. Lester, to let Herndon have it, which
was agreed to; and Herndon, cutting a sapling, attached the flag to
it and soon disappeared. In a little while the brigade was ordered
off to the right, where we were engaged in brisk skirmishing till
nightfall, when we were ordered to our left front to relieve some
infantry in a line of temporary works. We learned that the enemy
were intervening between us and Bentonville, that General Johnston’s
little army was threatened, and that a battle was imminent. In
passing up the road to the works, the rosin on the pine trees
had been lighted, and we were visible to the enemy, who kept up a
constant fire. As our infantry would pass us going to the rear, we
heard more than one squad speaking of a soldier who had come upon the
line that morning and said to them: “What are they keeping up such
a racket for? I can see no one to fire at.” Deliberately climbing
over the works and, reaching an elevated position some distance to
their front and mounting it, he waved his flag toward the enemy, who
immediately turned loose a volley at him, and he and his flag fell
to the ground. This brought to mind the incident of Herndon and the
flag. When I inquired of the next soldier that passed, I was informed
that he had been sent to the field hospital. I at once dispatched
one of his company back to investigate the matter. I did not see
him until the next day, when he reported the facts as stated, and
that he found Herndon in the field hospital badly wounded in several
places, and that one of the surgeons in charge told him that Herndon
was mortally wounded and was certain to die. Before the friend left
him, Herndon requested him to look in his haversack and get out the
flag and return it to headquarters with his compliments. I have never
heard of Herndon since, and I suppose that he died and was buried
at or near Averyboro, N. C. This flag was afterwards most gallantly
carried by James B. Nance, the bugler of the regiment, through the
battle of Bentonville. The surrender of the army occurring a few
weeks after this, Nance concealed the flag and brought it home with
him to Smith County, Tenn. I have regretted since that I did not
preserve the flag. I did not meet Nance for a year after we came
home, when he said that he had given the flag to his wife and she had
made an apron of it for her little girl. If I had it now, it could
tell of more fire and battle, though short-lived as it was, than many
of the flags we see so heroically flaunting at latter-day reunions.
A few days before the battle of Averyboro General Bragg, who was
reporting to General Johnston, fought a battle at Kingston, N. C.,
with the Federal General Cox, driving him from the field with the
loss of 1,500 prisoners and three pieces of artillery. At daylight
we left the intrenchments at Averyboro, following General Hardee,
who was hurrying on to Bentonville. When we reached Bentonville, the
battle was on. General Johnston had had some success the day before,
but the enemy were constantly arriving in great numbers.
This was the last general battle of the war fought by the Army of
Tennessee. General Johnston, in his narrative of his campaigns, says
that his available forces at Bentonville were about 5,000 men of the
Army of Tennessee, and that the troops of the department amounted
to about 11,000. Sherman was marching against him with an army of
70,000, and nearly as large a force was approaching from the North
Carolina coast. The last day of the battle, which, if I remember
right, was the 19th or 20th of March, 1865, Wheeler’s cavalry command
was ordered to the front along a curved line that was to be extended
from the right at a point on Mill Creek around to the left, so as to
cover the small village of Bentonville and the bridge which spanned
Mill Creek, a large and muddy creek with marshy approaches. The
bridge was the only egress for the army. We moved along the curved
line occupied by the infantry, and had hardly passed the crescent
of the curve when we found General Johnston and his staff standing
there in earnest conversation with General Wheeler. We heard Johnston
order Wheeler to send a regiment to the left front and develop the
enemy. The brigade commanded by Col. Baxter Smith happened to be in
front, and Wheeler ordered him to send forward his front regiment,
which was the Fourth Tennessee. Colonel Smith accompanied his old
regiment, leaving the remainder of the brigade standing in line upon
their horses in the edge of a wood. They had not proceeded far when,
in passing over and down the slope of a hill, they came into the view
of a line of the enemy’s skirmishers extending for half a mile across
the field. Upon seeing us, they commenced firing, and our horses and
men were falling fast when the Regiment was ordered to dismount and
the horses were sent to the rear. The men, moving out in the field
to the left, threw down a fence and began firing upon the advancing
skirmishers. We remained there some time, until it looked as if they
would envelop us, when a courier came from General Wheeler with the
order to fall back upon the line in the edge of the wood. As we
moved back up the hill, the enemy continued to fire vigorously at
us, and we could see our mounted men falling from their horses as we
approached. The shots intended for us passed over our heads, killing
and wounding many of them.
The courier who brought us the message to fall back was on horseback,
and was shot in the head and instantly killed. His body was thrown
into a passing ambulance, with directions to take it back to the
village and bury it, marking the grave. He was Robert Davis, of
Company K, and, though but nineteen years of age, had been in the
war since its commencement. His father lived at Lebanon, Tenn., and
soon after the war went to Bentonville and brought the body home. A
gentleman had buried it in his garden, marking the grave. He had also
kept his horse, and the father brought it home with him.
Johnston shifted his infantry farther to the left; the enemy coming
no nearer, Wheeler was ordered still farther to the left. Here was
encountered the enemy again in a sharp contest in a dense woodland.
Among the wounded was Capt. J. W. Nichol, of Company G. This was
the third wound that this most gallant officer had received. He
was shot through the breast; and as he was borne from the field,
pale and bleeding, it was remarked that we would never see him
again. Remarkable to state, he was back at the surrender a few weeks
thereafter, surrendering with his regiment. Colonel Smith had the
Third Arkansas and the Eleventh Texas to dismount and march forward
to where the skirmishing was going on. The Eighth Texas and the
Fourth Tennessee were standing there in column. An officer of General
Hardee’s came riding in haste from down the road, and, inquiring for
the officer, said to Colonel Smith that the enemy were threatening
the bridge, and asked him to come down there as soon as possible,
that such were the orders of General Hardee. Colonel Smith hastened
with all dispatch with his two mounted regiments to the designated
spot. The field hospital of General Johnston’s army was close by;
and as the command passed down the road, we could see men escaping
from the hospital and a general scattering of men, evidencing that
something of a stirring nature was happening. We found General Hardee
standing in the road about half a mile or more from where we started.
He at once ordered the regiments into line along the road and to
charge through the woods, and, in coming up with the enemy, to drive
them from the field. There was no force of our own in front of us,
and there was a gap of a quarter of a mile or more from the creek
to where our line extended from the right. We charged promptly and
vigorously, as ordered, and had not gone far till we struck a long
line of the enemy’s skirmishers. They were taken by surprise at the
suddenness of the attack; and as we rode in among them, using our
“navies,” we scattered them and forced them back to their main line,
a distance of several hundred yards. Some were killed and wounded,
and a few prisoners were taken. We lost a few men ourselves. At this
juncture of affairs a line of our infantry appeared in our rear;
and before the enemy could recover from their surprise we had a
sufficient force to hold the position till General Johnston’s army
passed over the bridge that night. Undoubtedly this charge of the
Eighth Texas and the Fourth Tennessee saved the bridge and made
certain the escape of Johnston’s little army at Bentonville, for
at that time the enemy numbered six to our one. The enemy we were
fighting was a large skirmish line of General Mower’s division of
infantry. General Hardee extended his thanks to Colonel Smith for
the success of the gallant charge of his two regiments.
These facts I have stated were well known by soldiers of the army
at the time, and I have frequently heard them expressed since. In
late years some writers have written upon the subject, claiming that
their respective commands took part in the fight on this part of the
line. If they did, I am free to say that I did not see them, and my
opportunities were good to know of it if they had done so. When the
two regiments reached the point where General Hardee stood, there was
some artillery firing toward the enemy from the right of our line
and some artillery immediately in our rear that fired over our heads
as we went down the slope into the wood. I remember that a piece of
wood that had become detached from a canister shell struck Lieutenant
Scoggins, of Company C, stunning him and making him unconscious
for a while. He is now living in Nashville, and is one of its most
prominent citizens.
This gap in General Johnston’s line had suddenly become the most
important part in the line, and all available forces were hurried
there to repel the danger that seriously threatened: but I do not
think any further firing took place. This was the last firing from
the Army of Tennessee in its last battle during the war. General
Johnston, in his report of the battle of Bentonville, says: “In
the Eighth Texas Regiment, Lieutenant General Hardee’s only son, a
noble youth of sixteen, charging bravely in the foremost rank, fell
mortally wounded. He had enlisted but a few days before.” General
Hardee reported his loss at Averyboro at 500. Prisoners taken said
that the Federal loss was about 3,000. General Johnston, in his
report on the three days’ fighting at Bentonville, says that his
loss was 223 killed, 1,467 wounded, and 653 missing. Of the missing,
many of them reported to him afterwards at Smithfield, having charged
through the Federal lines where gaps were made by the thick timber,
and, passing into the country beyond, rejoined their commands in a
few days thereafter. Maj. Buck Joyner, of the Eighteenth Tennessee
Infantry, was one of this lot, who reported with about one hundred
of his men. General Johnston, speaking further in his report on
Bentonville, says: “We captured 903 prisoners.” The Federals reported
their loss to have exceeded 4,000, which is about correct, I suppose,
when we remember that the Confederates fought for the most of
the time in intrenchments. The appearance of the field of battle
certainly justified such a conclusion.
My comment on the battle of Bentonville is that the Confederates
fought with as much bravery and patriotic zeal as they had shown at
Murfreesboro or at Chickamauga. It is true that they had everything
to discourage them, had they stopped to think; but an instinct
of honor suggested that they would stick it out to the end, let
consequences be what they may, and the idea of a surrender had not
then entered their heads.