We are now in winter quarters near Morristown in the coldest country and
the wettest country I ever saw. Fortunately, we have tents plenty, wood
abundant and a good country to get something to eat. It is too cold and
wet to drill, therefore, we have nothing to do but rest up, patch our
old clothes as best we can, and our barefoot boys resort to the method
of tying up their feet in pieces of blankets, making a kind of moccasin.
Were we properly clothed and shod we would be comparatively comfortable.
This East Tennessee country is a fine country for hogs, cattle, eggs,
chickens, flour, meal, bee-gums and maple syrup. We are certainly on the
go, hunting and finding some of all these things, but as I am one of
those who are totally without a covering to my feet and my breeches are
too far gone to even take a patch, I cannot get out much. But Jim
Diamond is as good as ever hunting up these things, and our mess has a
plenty to eat. He even sometimes comes in with a little applejack, and
then we have a "jollification" sure enough. Col. Hagood and Capt. Wood
have about joined our mess for good. They having a negro boy cook, each
one generally goes out with Jim, while the other remains and cooks, and
the colonel and captain have some money--we have none. We could not very
well refuse to take them in with us.
We had not been here more than three weeks when we heard some fighting
going on down on Strawberry Plains, thirteen miles off. Our cavalry had
run up on a lot of moving Yankee infantry and had attacked them. We were
called out and formed line of march. This was bitter cold weather and
this was a hard march on us, especially those of us who were barefoot,
among whom I was one. We barefoot fellows wrapped up our feet the best
we could and fell in with the balance. The woods were full of water from
the rains and were so hard frozen that the ice did not break with the
weight of the horses. We hurriedly arrived near the fighting, and, just
on the edge of the plain in which the fight was going on, and in a thick
woods, all the barefoot men were ordered to fall out and make fires. It
was only a short way to the firing, and, instead of "falling out," I had
an eye for the future. We went into the open fields in a double quick
line of battle. The enemy fell back as we advanced. We had not gone more
than a couple of hundred yards before we ran over some dead Yankees.
Here was my opportunity, and I embraced it. The first one I got to I
stopped, pulled off his pants, shoes and stockings, got right into them,
there and then. The shoes were new and fit perfectly; the stockings were
good wool and came up to my knees, and the pants were all right, except
a little too long, but I rolled them up about as they are worn these
days and they, too, were a fit. I felt _grand_. The fight was soon over,
with no casualties on our side. We then started for our return trip and
I felt very sorry for those poor barefoot devils who took the
opportunity of stopping at a fire rather than go a little further and
have the chance of "rigging out" in a good outfit. They had to take it
back as they had come.
A few days after this a lady came into our camp and asked Col. Hagood
for a guard to protect her place, saying she would feed us and sleep us.
I was sent in charge of the detail. Along with me was Jimmie Brabham, a
son of Maj. J. J. Brabham, of Buford's Bridge. Maj. Brabham was, after
the war, Clerk of the Court of Barnwell County for a good many years and
was the first captain of Company C while around Charleston and the
islands the first year of the war. We were sent out (Jim Brabham and
myself) with the lady, who took us to her home about four miles from our
camp. We were all afoot. When we got to her home we discovered that we
were outside of our lines, about equi-distant between our lines and the
Yankee lines, perhaps a mile from each. When I discovered this I
determined to go back and give up the scheme, but the lady told me that
she was Mrs. McDonald, the wife of a Yankee major, who was encamped not
more than three miles off. It was he who sent her for a guard, and he
told her to pledge our protection from the Yankees. Jim and I concluded
to stay, and Mrs. McDonald assigned us to a nice, warm room, good
feather bed with plenty of warm covering. We remained here with her and
her two children, a boy of about thirteen years and a girl, named
Becky, about sixteen years, for thirty-eight days.
Mrs. McDonald was very kind to us. We had the biggest kind of oak fires
in the sitting room all day, and the fires would be there through the
entire night. We would go to bed usually at about ten o'clock. Only
about two nights in the week Mrs. McDonald would say, "Go to bed earlier
tonight, boys, the major is coming." He used to come home about two
nights a week, but we never got to see him, nor did we care to see him.
Mrs. McDonald was a good cook, along with everything else, and she
surely did feed us well on the best--principally sausages and big
hominy. Jim and I would go up on the side of the mountains with the
little boy, his mule and slide, and help haul wood which was already
cut. On one occasion Mrs. McDonald asked me to go to mill for her; the
meal was out. She had the corn shelled, and told me the mill was inside
the Yankee lines, but the major had told the picket on duty at the mill
not to molest me. Well, I decided that as they had been true to us in
everything else, when they could have taken us any night, that there was
no danger. So Jim helped me to get about three bushels of corn up on the
mule, gave me "a leg," and then, getting direction, I pulled out for the
mill. I found the mill at least two miles, or it seemed to me. As I rode
on the end of the mill dam some half dozen Yankees came out of the mill
house, all well armed. I could not but feel a little uneasy, but when I
reached the house they bid me, "Good morning, Johnny." They helped me
off and took in the sack of corn. We sat around in the sunshine and
talked till the corn was ready, when they put it up on the mule and
helped me up and bade me good-bye.
Near Mrs. McDonald's home were several other homes, and nearly every
night we would have company in the persons of some young ladies who
would spend the evenings, sometimes remaining till eleven or twelve
o'clock. They would jump on poor Jim and me and give us the devil in a
friendly way. They seemed to like us very much. I remember they had a
song which they would sing us, something like this:
"Some near day you will hear the Yankees say,
To old Jeff Davis, 'You had better get away,
For we will raise the Union band,
Make the Rebels understand,
To leave our land
Or submit to Abraham.'"
They would have a jolly time with us and we equally as jolly a time with
them. To show how well the major took care of us from his people, we
would even go home with the girls all hours of the night and were never
disturbed. But this could not last forever, and the time came when we
were called in; and two days after we struck camp and started again for
Virginia. On passing through Morristown I saw Mrs. McDonald, Becky and
Tom and several of the young ladies who had been to visit us at the
McDonalds, on a street corner. They had gone to town to see us off and
bade us good-bye. They called us out of ranks and seemed real sorry to
see us go. I have often thought of the good people and wondered if the
major got through all right. I hope he did.
We kept on the move until we reached Bristol, Tenn., when we stopped a
couple of days to rest up. After which we moved again and stopped a day
or two at Chancellorsville, and then on to Gordonsville, where we were
met by Gen. Lee and had a grand review by the grand old chieftain, who
seemed as happy to have us back as we were to get back. Gen. Lee must
have felt good in getting the welcome extended him by those who had been
lost to him so long. The men hung around him and seemed satisfied to lay
their hands on his gray horse or to touch the bridle, or the stirrup, or
the old general's leg--anything that Lee had was sacred to us fellows
who had just come back. _And the general._ He could not help from
breaking down. Here were men who had gone forward at his command,
knowing that they might never get out; here were men who had never
murmured when Lee said, "Go!" or "Come." Here were men who had suffered
privation, hunger, cold, _death itself_, whenever ordered by him. He
could not help giving way, and tears traced down his cheeks, and he felt
that we were again to do his bidding.
We stopped over here for several days and got a good many recruits,
some sick and wounded returning to us, and some other men and boys, new
men who had never yet seen service. Among these were old men--Walton
Hair, Mathias Hair, from Elko; John William Canady, from Tinker Creek;
W. F. Kitchen, Darios Ogden and Artist Woodward, from Williston, and
Eddie Bellinger, from Barnwell, and Job Rountree, from Joyce's
Branch--all these for Company E, Eddie Bellinger being the only young
man, and he a mere youth. These new recruits, with some sick and wounded
returning, made us a right respectable company once more. We needed
another officer in our company, having only Capt. Wood and Lieut. Dick
Best, from Allendale, so we held an election for lieutenant, and J.
Marshall Hair, of Williston, was elected.
After remaining here for perhaps two weeks, on the morning of the third
day of May we took up our line of march and on the night of the fifth of
May we stopped for the night within six miles of the Wilderness, having
tramped sixty-odd miles in the two and a half days. When we stopped for
the night we were pretty badly jaded and needed the night's rest. We had
been hearing the musketry and cannonading nearly the entire day. This
was kept up all night and we knew that we would be into the thickest of
it early next morning, and, sure enough, we were put on the move just
before day. We moved at a double quick and kept up the double quick for
the entire six miles, when we reached the Wilderness and went directly
into it.