KENTUCKY
WE GO INTO KENTUCKY
After being thoroughly reorganized at Tupelo, and the troops had
recovered their health and spirits, we made an advance into Kentucky.
We took the cars at Tupelo and went to Mobile, from thence across Mobile
Bay to Montgomery, Alabama, then to Atlanta, from there to Chattanooga,
and then over the mountains afoot to the blue-grass regions of Kentucky--
the dark and bloody ground. Please remember, patient reader, that I
write entirely from memory. I have no data or diary or anything to go by,
and memory is a peculiar faculty. I find that I cannot remember towns
and battles, and remember only the little things. I remember how gladly
the citizens of Kentucky received us. I thought they had the prettiest
girls that God ever made. They could not do too much for us. They had
heaps and stacks of cooked rations along our route, with wine and cider
everywhere, and the glad shouts of "Hurrah for our Southern boys!"
greeted and welcomed us at every house. Ah, the boys felt like soldiers
again. The bands played merrier and livelier tunes. It was the patient
convalescing; the fever had left him, he was getting fat and strong;
the old fire was seen to illuminate his eyes; his step was buoyant and
proud; he felt ashamed that he had ever been "hacked"; he could fight
now. It was the same old proud soldier of yore. The bands played "Dixie"
and the "Bonnie Blue Flag," the citizens cheered, and the ladies waved
their handkerchiefs and threw us bouquets. Ah, those were halcyon days,
and your old soldier, kind reader, loves to recall that happy period.
Mumfordsville had been captured with five thousand prisoners. New
recruits were continually joining our ranks.
Camp Dick Robinson, that immense pile of army stores, had fallen into our
hands. We rode upon the summit of the wave of success. The boys had got
clean clothes, and had their faces washed. I saw then what I had long
since forgotten--a "cockade." The Kentucky girls made cockades for us,
and almost every soldier had one pinned on his hat. But stirring events
were hastening on, the black cloud of battle and war had begun then to
appear much larger than a man's hand, in fact we could see the lightning
flash and hear the thunder roar.
We were at Harrodsburg; the Yankees were approaching Perryville under
General Buell. The Yankees had been dogging our rear, picking up our
stragglers and capturing some of our wagon trains.
This good time that we were having was too good to last. We were in an
ecstasy akin to heaven. We were happy; the troops were jubilant; our
manhood blood pulsated more warmly; our patriotism was awakened; our
pride was renewed and stood ready for any emergency; we felt that one
Southern man could whip twenty Yankees. All was lovely and the goose
hung high. We went to dances and parties every night.
When General Chalmers marched to Perryville, in flanking and surrounding
Mumfordsville, we marched the whole night long. We, the private soldiers,
did not know what was going on among the generals. All that we had to do
was march, march, march. It mattered not how tired, hungry, or thirsty
we were. All that we had to do was to march that whole night long,
and every staff officer who would pass, some fellow would say, "Hey,
mister, how far is it to Mumfordsville?" He would answer, "five miles."
It seemed to me we traveled a hundred miles and were always within five
miles of Mumfordsville. That night we heard a volley of musketry in our
immediate front, and did not know what it meant, but soon we came to
where a few soldiers had lighted some candles and were holding them
over the body of a dead soldier. It was Captain Allison, if I remember
rightly, of General Cheatham's staff. He was very bloody, and had his
clothes riddled with balls. I heard that he rode on in front of the
advance guard of our army, and had no doubt discovered the Yankee picket,
and came galloping back at full speed in the dark, when our advance guard
fired on and killed him.
We laid down in a graveyard that night and slept, and when we awoke the
sun was high in the heavens, shining in our faces. Mumfordsville had
surrendered. The next day Dr. C. T. Quintard let me ride his horse
nearly all day, while he walked with the webfeet.
THE BATTLE OF PERRYVILLE
In giving a description of this most memorable battle, I do not pretend
to give you figures, and describe how this general looked and how that
one spoke, and the other one charged with drawn sabre, etc. I know
nothing of these things--see the history for that. I was simply a
soldier of the line, and I only write of the things I saw. I was in
every battle, skirmish and march that was made by the First Tennessee
Regiment during the war, and I do not remember of a harder contest and
more evenly fought battle than that of Perryville. If it had been two
men wrestling, it would have been called a "dog fall." Both sides claim
the victory--both whipped.
I stood picket in Perryville the night before the battle--a Yankee on
one side of the street, and I on the other. We got very friendly during
the night, and made a raid upon a citizen's pantry, where we captured
a bucket of honey, a pitcher of sweet milk, and three or four biscuit.
The old citizen was not at home--he and his whole household had gone
visiting, I believe. In fact, I think all of the citizens of Perryville
were taken with a sudden notion of promiscuous visiting about this time;
at least they were not at home to all callers.
At length the morning dawned. Our line was drawn up on one side of
Perryville, the Yankee army on the other. The two enemies that were soon
to meet in deadly embrace seemed to be eyeing each other. The blue coats
lined the hillside in plain view. You could count the number of their
regiments by the number of their flags. We could see the huge war dogs
frowning at us, ready at any moment to belch forth their fire and smoke,
and hurl their thunderbolts of iron and death in our very midst.
I wondered why the fighting did not begin. Never on earth were our
troops more eager for the engagement to open. The Yankees commenced to
march toward their left, and we marched almost parallel to our right--
both sides watching each other's maneuvers and movements. It was but the
lull that precedes the storm. Colonel Field was commanding our brigade,
and Lieutenant-Colonel Patterson our regiment. About 12 o'clock, while
we were marching through a corn field, in which the corn had been shocked,
they opened their war dogs upon us. The beginning of the end had come.
Here is where Captain John F. Wheless was wounded, and three others,
whose names I have forgotten. The battle now opened in earnest, and from
one end of the line to the other seemed to be a solid sheet of blazing
smoke and fire. Our regiment crossed a stream, being preceded by
Wharton's Texas Rangers, and we were ordered to attack at once with
vigor. Here General Maney's horse was shot. From this moment the battle
was a mortal struggle. Two lines of battle confronted us. We killed
almost every one in the first line, and were soon charging over the
second, when right in our immediate front was their third and main line
of battle from which four Napoleon guns poured their deadly fire.
We did not recoil, but our line was fairly hurled back by the leaden hail
that was poured into our very faces. Eight color-bearers were killed at
one discharge of their cannon. We were right up among the very wheels
of their Napoleon guns. It was death to retreat now to either side.
Our Lieutenant-Colonel Patterson halloed to charge and take their guns,
and we were soon in a hand-to-hand fight--every man for himself--using
the butts of our guns and bayonets. One side would waver and fall back a
few yards, and would rally, when the other side would fall back, leaving
the four Napoleon guns; and yet the battle raged. Such obstinate
fighting I never had seen before or since. The guns were discharged
so rapidly that it seemed the earth itself was in a volcanic uproar.
The iron storm passed through our ranks, mangling and tearing men to
pieces. The very air seemed full of stifling smoke and fire which seemed
the very pit of hell, peopled by contending demons.
Our men were dead and dying right in the very midst of this grand havoc
of battle. It was a life to life and death to death grapple. The sun
was poised above us, a great red ball sinking slowly in the west, yet the
scene of battle and carnage continued. I cannot describe it. The mantle
of night fell upon the scene. I do not know which side whipped, but I
know that I helped bring off those four Napoleon guns that night though
we were mighty easy about it.
They were given to Turner's Battery of our brigade and had the name of
our Lieutenant-Colonel Patterson and our color-bearer, Mitchell, both of
whom were killed, inscribed on two of the pieces. I have forgotten the
names inscribed on the other two pieces. I saw these very four guns
surrendered at Missionary Ridge. But of this another time.
The battle of Perryville presented a strange scene. The dead, dying,
and wounded of both armies, Confederate and Federal, were blended in
inextricable confusion. Now and then a cluster of dead Yankees and close
by a cluster of dead Rebels. It was like the Englishman's grog--'alf and
'alf. Now, if you wish, kind reader, to find out how many were killed
and wounded, I refer you to the histories.
I remember one little incident that I laughed at while in the very midst
of battle. We were charging through an old citizen's yard, when a big
yellow cur dog ran out and commenced snapping at the soldiers' legs--
they kicking at him to keep him off. The next morning he was lying near
the same place, but he was a dead dog.
I helped bring off our wounded that night. We worked the whole night.
The next morning about daylight a wounded comrade, Sam Campbell,
complained of being cold, and asked me to lie down beside him. I did so,
and was soon asleep; when I awoke the poor fellow was stiff and cold in
death. His spirit had flown to its home beyond the skies.
After the battle was over, John T. Tucker, Scott Stephens, A. S. Horsley
and I were detailed to bring off our wounded that night, and we helped
to bring off many a poor dying comrade--Joe Thompson, Billy Bond, Byron
Richardson, the two Allen boys--brothers, killed side by side--and
Colonel Patterson, who was killed standing right by my side. He was
first shot through the hand, and was wrapping his handkerchief around it,
when another ball struck and killed him. I saw W. J. Whittorne, then a
strippling boy of fifteen years of age, fall, shot through the neck and
collar-bone. He fell apparently dead, when I saw him all at once jump up,
grab his gun and commence loading and firing, and I heard him say,
"D--n 'em, I'll fight 'em as long as I live." Whit thought he was killed,
but he is living yet. We helped bring off a man by the name of Hodge,
with his under jaw shot off, and his tongue lolling out. We brought off
Captain Lute B. Irvine. Lute was shot through the lungs and was vomiting
blood all the while, and begging us to lay him down and let him die.
But Lute is living yet. Also, Lieutenant Woldridge, with both eyes shot
out. I found him rambling in a briar-patch. About fifty members of the
Rock City Guards were killed and nearly one hundred wounded. They were
led by Captains W. D. Kelley, Wheless, and Steele. Lieutenant Thomas
H. Maney was badly wounded. I saw dead on the battlefield a Federal
General by the name of Jackson. It was his brigade that fought us so
obstinately at this place, and I did hear that they were made up in
Kentucky. Colonel Field, then commanding our brigade, and on his fine
gray mare, rode up almost face to face with General Jackson, before
he was killed, and Colonel Field was shooting all the time with his
seven-shooting rifle. I cannot tell the one-half, or even remember at
this late date, the scenes of blood and suffering that I witnessed on
the battlefield of Perryville. But its history, like all the balance,
has gone into the history of the war, and it has been twenty years ago,
and I write entirely from memory. I remember Lieutenant Joe P. Lee and
Captain W. C. Flournoy standing right at the muzzle of the Napoleon guns,
and the next moment seemed to be enveloped in smoke and fire from the
discharge of the cannon. When the regiment recoiled under the heavy
firing and at the first charge, Billy Webster and I stopped behind a
large oak tree and continued to fire at the Yankees until the regiment
was again charging upon the four Napoleon guns, heavily supported by
infantry. We were not more than twenty paces from them; and here I was
shot through the hat and cartridge-box. I remember this, because at
that time Billy and I were in advance of our line, and whenever we saw
a Yankee rise to shoot, we shot him; and I desire to mention here that
a braver or more noble boy was never created on earth than was Billy
Webster. Everybody liked him. He was the flower and chivalry of our
regiment. His record as a brave and noble boy will ever live in the
hearts of his old comrades that served with him in Company H. He is up
yonder now, and we shall meet again. In these memoirs I only tell what I
saw myself, and in this way the world will know the truth. Now, citizen,
let me tell you what you never heard before, and this is this--there were
many men with the rank and pay of general, who were not generals; there
were many men with the rank and pay of privates who would have honored
and adorned the name of general. Now, I will state further that a
private soldier was a private.
It mattered not how ignorant a corporal might be, he was always right;
it mattered not how intelligent the private might be (and so on up);
the sergeant was right over the corporal, the sergeant-major over the
sergeant, the lieutenant over him, and the captain over him, and the
major over him, and the colonel over him, and the general over him,
and so on up to Jeff Davis. You see, a private had no right to know
anything, and that is why generals did all the fighting, and that is
today why generals and colonels and captains are great men. They fought
the battles of our country. The privates did not. The generals risked
their reputation, the private soldier his life. No one ever saw a
private in battle. His history would never be written. It was the
generals that everybody saw charge such and such, with drawn sabre,
his eyes flashing fire, his nostrils dilated, and his clarion voice
ringing above the din of battle--"in a horn," over the left.
Bill Johns and Marsh Pinkard would have made Generals that would have
distinguished themselves and been an honor to the country.
I know today many a private who would have made a good General. I know
of many a General who was better fitted to be excused from detail and
fights, to hang around a camp and draw rations for the company. A
private had no way to distinguish himself. He had to keep in ranks,
either in a charge or a retreat. But now, as the Generals and Colonels
fill all the positions of honor and emoluments, the least I say, the
better.
THE RETREAT OUT OF KENTUCKY
From Perryville we went to Camp Dick Robinson and drew three days'
rations, and then set fire to and destroyed all those great deposits of
army stores which would have supplied the South for a year. We ate those
rations and commenced our retreat out of Kentucky with empty haversacks
and still emptier stomachs.
We supposed our general and commissaries knew what they were doing,
and at night we would again draw rations, but we didn't.
The Yankee cavalry are worrying our rear guards. There is danger of an
attack at any moment. No soldier is allowed to break ranks.
We thought, well surely we will draw rations tonight. But we didn't.
We are marching for Cumberland Gap; the country has long ago been made
desolate by the alternate occupation of both armies. There are no
provisions in the country. It has long since been laid waste. We wanted
rations, but we did not get them.
Fourth day out--Cumberland Gap in the distance--a great indenture in the
ranges of Cumberland mountains. The scene was grand. But grand scenery
had but little attraction for a hungry soldier. Surely we will get
rations at Cumberland Gap. Toil on up the hill, and when half way up
the hill, "Halt!"--march back down to the foot of the hill to defend the
cavalry. I was hungry. A cavalryman was passing our regiment with a
pile of scorched dough on the pummel of his saddle. Says I, "Halt!
I am going to have a pattock of that bread." "Don't give it to him!
don't give it to him!" was yelled out from all sides. I cocked my gun
and was about to raise it to my shoulder, when he handed me over a
pattock of scorched dough, and every fellow in Company H made a grab
for it, and I only got about two or three mouthfuls. About dark a wild
heifer ran by our regiment, and I pulled down on her. We killed and
skinned her, and I cut off about five pounds of hindquarter. In three
minutes there was no sign of that beef left to tell the tale. We ate
that beef raw and without salt.
Only eight miles now to Cumberland Gap, and we will get rations now.
But we didn't. We descended the mountain on the southern side. No
rations yet.
Well, says I, this won't do me. I am going to hunt something to eat,
Bragg or no Bragg. I turned off the road and struck out through the
country, but had gone but a short distance before I came across a group
of soldiers clambering over something. It was Tom Tuck with a barrel of
sorghum that he had captured from a good Union man. He was selling it
out at five dollars a quart. I paid my five dollars, and by pushing and
scrouging I finally got my quart. I sat down and drank it; it was bully;
it was not so good; it was not worth a cent; I was sick, and have never
loved sorghum since.
Along the route it was nothing but tramp, tramp, tramp, and no sound or
noise but the same inevitable, monotonous tramp, tramp, tramp, up hill
and down hill, through long and dusty lanes, weary, wornout and hungry.
No cheerful warble of a merry songster would ever greet our ears.
It was always tramp, tramp, tramp. You might, every now and then,
hear the occasional words, "close up;" but outside of that, it was but
the same tramp, tramp, tramp. I have seen soldiers fast asleep, and no
doubt dreaming of home and loved ones there, as they staggered along in
their places in the ranks. I know that on many a weary night's march I
have slept, and slept soundly, while marching along in my proper place
in the ranks of the company, stepping to the same step as the soldier
in front of me did. Sometimes, when weary, broken down and worn out,
some member of the regiment would start a tune, and every man would join
in. John Branch was usually the leader of the choir. He would commence
a beautiful tune. The words, as I remember them now, were "Dear Paul,
Just Twenty Years Ago." After singing this piece he would commence on a
lively, spirit-stirring air to the tune of "Old Uncle Ned." Now, reader,
it has been twenty years ago since I heard it, but I can remember a part
of it now. Here it is:
"There was an ancient individual whose cognomen was Uncle Edward.
He departed this life long since, long since.
He had no capillary substance on the top of his cranium,
The place where the capillary substance ought to vegetate.
His digits were as long as the bamboo piscatorial implement of the
Southern Mississippi.
He had no oculars to observe the beauties of nature.
He had no ossified formation to masticate his daily rations,
So he had to let his daily rations pass by with impunity."
Walker Coleman raises the tune of "I'se a gwine to jine the rebel band,
a fightin' for my home."
Now, reader, the above is all I can now remember of that very beautiful
and soul-stirring air. But the boys would wake up and step quicker and
livelier for some time, and Arthur Fulghum would holloa out, "All right;
go ahead!" and then would toot! toot! as if the cars were starting--
puff! puff! puff and then he would say, "Tickets, gentlemen; tickets,
gentlemen." like he was conductor on a train of cars. This little
episode would be over, and then would commence the same tramp, tramp,
tramp, all night long. Step by step, step by step, we continued to plod
and nod and stagger and march, tramp, tramp, tramp. After a while we
would see the morning star rise in the east, and then after a while the
dim gray twilight, and finally we could discover the outlines of our file
leader, and after a while could make out the outlines of trees and other
objects. And as it would get lighter and lighter, and day would be about
to break, cuckoo, cuckoo, cuckoo, would come from Tom Tuck's rooster.
[Tom carried a game rooster, that he called "Fed" for Confederacy,
all through the war in a haversack.] And then the sun would begin to
shoot his slender rays athwart the eastern sky, and the boys would wake
up and begin laughing and talking as if they had just risen from a good
feather bed, and were perfectly refreshed and happy. We would usually
stop at some branch or other about breakfast time, and all wash our hands
and faces and eat breakfast, if we had any, and then commence our weary
march again. If we were halted for one minute, every soldier would drop
down, and resting on his knapsack, would go to sleep. Sometimes the
sleeping soldiers were made to get up to let some general and his staff
pass by. But whenever that was the case, the general always got a worse
cursing than when Noah cursed his son Ham black and blue. I heard Jessee
Ely do this once.
We march on. The scene of a few days ago comes unbidden to my mind.
Tramp, tramp, tramp, the soldiers are marching. Where are many of my old
friends and comrades, whose names were so familiar at every roll call,
and whose familiar "Here" is no more? They lie yonder at Perryville,
unburied, on the field of battle. They lie where they fell. More than
three hundred and fifty members of my regiment, the First Tennessee,
numbered among the killed and wounded--one hundred and eighty-five slain
on the field of battle. Who are they? Even then I had to try to think
up the names of all the slain of Company H alone. Their spirits seemed
to be with us on the march, but we know that their souls are with their
God. Their bones, today, no doubt, bleach upon the battlefield. They
left their homes, families, and loved ones a little more than one short
twelve months ago, dressed in their gray uniforms, amid the applause and
cheering farewells of those same friends. They lie yonder; no friendly
hands ever closed their eyes in death; no kind, gentle, and loving mother
was there to shed a tear over and say farewell to her darling boy;
no sister's gentle touch ever wiped the death damp from off their dying
brows. Noble boys; brave boys! They willingly gave their lives to their
country's cause. Their bodies and bones are mangled and torn by the rude
missiles of war. They sleep the sleep of the brave. They have given
their all to their country. We miss them from our ranks. There are no
more hard marches and scant rations for them. They have accomplished all
that could be required of them. They are no more; their names are soon
forgotten. They are put down in the roll-book as killed. They are
forgotten. We will see them no more until the last reveille on the last
morning of the final resurrection. Soldiers, comrades, friends, noble
boys, farewell we will meet no more on earth, but up yonder some day we
will have a grand reunion.
KNOXVILLE
The first night after crossing Cumberland Gap--I have forgotten the date,
but I know it was very early in the fall of the year; we had had no
frost or cold weather, and our marches all through Kentucky had been
characterized by very dry weather, it not having rained a drop on us
during the whole time--about four o'clock in the morning it began to snow,
and the next morning the ground was covered with a deep snow; the trees
and grass and everything of the vegetable kingdom still green.
When we got back to Knoxville we were the lousiest, dirtiest, raggedest
looking Rebels you ever saw. I had been shot through the hat and
cartridge-box at Perryville, and had both on, and the clothing I then had
on was all that I had in the world. William A. Hughes and I were walking
up the street looking at the stores, etc., when we met two of the
prettiest girls I ever saw. They ran forward with smiling faces, and
seemed very glad to see us. I thought they were old acquaintances of
Hughes, and Hughes thought they were old acquaintances of mine. We were
soon laughing and talking as if we had been old friends, when one of the
young ladies spoke up and said, "Gentlemen, there is a supper for the
soldiers at the Ladies' Association rooms, and we are sent out to bring
in all the soldiers we can find." We spoke up quickly and said, "Thank
you, thank you, young ladies," and I picked out the prettiest one and
said, "Please take my arm," which she did, and Hughes did the same with
the other one, and we went in that style down the street. I imagine we
were a funny looking sight. I know one thing, I felt good all over,
and as proud as a boy with his first pants, and when we got to that
supper room those young ladies waited on us, and we felt as grand as
kings. To you, ladies, I say, God bless you!
AH, "SNEAK"
Almost every soldier in the army--generals, colonels, captains, as well
as privates--had a nick-name; and I almost believe that had the war
continued ten years, we would have forgotten our proper names. John
T. Tucker was called "Sneak," A. S. Horsley was called "Don Von One
Horsley," W. A. Hughes was called "Apple Jack," Green Rieves was called
"Devil Horse," the surgeon of our regiment was called "Old Snake,"
Bob Brank was called "Count," the colonel of the Fourth was called "Guide
Post," E. L. Lansdown was called "Left Tenant," some were called by
the name of "Greasy," some "Buzzard," others "Hog," and "Brutus," and
"Cassius," and "Caesar," "Left Center," and "Bolderdust," and "Old
Hannah;" in fact, the nick-names were singular and peculiar, and when a
man got a nick-name it stuck to him like the Old Man of the Sea did to
the shoulders of Sinbad, the sailor.
On our retreat the soldiers got very thirsty for tobacco (they always
used the word thirsty), and they would sometimes come across an old field
off which the tobacco had been cut and the suckers had re-sprouted from
the old stalk, and would cut off these suckers and dry them by the fire
and chew them. "Sneak" had somehow or other got hold of a plug or two,
and knowing that he would be begged for a chew, had cut it up in little
bits of pieces about one-fourth of a chew. Some fellow would say, "Sneak,
please give me a chew of tobacco." Sneak would say, "I don't believe
I have a piece left," and then he would begin to feel in his pockets.
He would pull that hand out and feel in another pocket, and then in his
coat pockets, and hid away down in an odd corner of his vest pocket he
would accidentally find a little chew, just big enough to make "spit
come." Sneak had his pockets full all the time. The boys soon found
out his inuendoes and subterfuges, but John would all the time appear as
innocent of having tobacco as a pet lamb that has just torn down a nice
vine that you were so careful in training to run over the front porch.
Ah, John, don't deny it now!
I JINE THE CAVALRY
When we got to Charleston, on the Hiwassee river, there we found the
First Tennessee Cavalry and Ninth Battalion, both of which had been made
up principally in Maury county, and we knew all the boys. We had a
good old-fashioned handshaking all around. Then I wanted to "jine the
cavalry." Captain Asa G. Freeman had an extra horse, and I got on him
and joined the cavalry for several days, but all the time some passing
cavalryman would make some jocose remark about "Here is a webfoot who
wants to jine the cavalry, and has got a bayonet on his gun and a
knapsack on his back." I felt like I had got into the wrong pen, but
anyhow I got to ride all of three days. I remember that Mr. Willis
B. Embry gave me a five-pound package of Kallickanick smoking tobacco,
for which I was very grateful. I think he was quartermaster of the First
Tennessee Cavalry, and as good a man and as clever a person as I ever
knew. None knew him but to love him. I was told that he was killed by
a lot of Yankee soldiers after he had surrendered to them, all the time
begging for his life, asking them please not kill him. But He that
noteth the sparrow's fall doeth all things well. Not one ever falls to
the ground with His consent.