MY SERVICE WITH CAPTAIN SHANNON.
It was our custom, when on these scouts inside of the enemy’s lines, to
rest for a part of the night out of sight and hearing of the road,
turning in when away from any settlement or house, so we would not be
seen and spend the balance of the night in sleep in perfect safety,
without having a guard. After spending that night in the woods, we
returned to the road and found a large number of fresh horse tracks
leading towards Little River. We construed these to mean that a Federal
scout had passed during the night, which we decided to catch up with;
charge their rear and stampede them. In about two or three miles from
there our road rose up on a little bluff against a fence, then turned
down the fence to the west into a lane, past a house. In the corner of
the field was a barn lot, with several barns, where we found about
thirty or forty Federals saddling their horses. We immediately withdrew
unobserved, under the bluff, to consult, and I suggested to the boys to
go around this field, in the woods, strike the road below, wait in
ambush until these fellows passed, then charge their rear, as intended.
Virge Phelps refused to listen and insisted on charging them right there
and then, which I conceived to be a very foolish thing to do, but
finally had to yield. As we rose the bluff the second time, we
discovered one of Shannon’s men coming over the fence, out of the field,
which we knew meant that Shannon was camped there with a lot of
prisoners.
Captain Shannon was instructed by General Hood at Atlanta to select
twenty-five or thirty men out of the regiment and operate inside of
Sherman’s lines all the time, getting information, and punishing
marauders wherever found engaged in their nefarious business of robbing
and burning homes.
Shannon’s selection of the men he had with him soon won for him and his
scout a reputation with our army, and especially with the enemy, second
to no scout ever sent out by any army. Mosby’s exploits in Virginia have
been considered most wonderful achievements for any small body of men.
The operations of Shannon’s scouts have never been written, but where
they were known, surpassed anything ever heard of.
Immediately after recognizing this man, coming over from the field, we
hunted up Captain Shannon and reported to him our work of the day
before, when he stated he was going to send these prisoners to
headquarters and suggested that I make my report to General McLaws by
the lieutenant in charge and that we go back with him, as he expected to
go over the same ground that we had passed over the day before. This we
were very willing and anxious to do, having never been in any engagement
with him.
Shannon made it a rule that wherever he struck the enemy he would charge
them at once and when he found they were too strong for him he would run
out and leave them, sometimes drawn up in line of battle, shelling the
woods after he was gone. As soon as ready, Shannon moved out with our
little party in the rear, they having better horses than ours, as they
managed by some means, to keep in fresh horses all the time.
One of the first places we stopped to inquire proved to belong to a very
intelligent old Rebel lady, who reported that an officer and a private
and a negro soldier had just left her house, the negro driving her
buggy, carrying off a lot of fine dress goods and silverware and
valuables in the buggy and the others having threatened to hang her if
she failed to tell where her money was, forcing her to give up about a
hundred dollars in gold and several thousand dollars in Confederate
bonds. She told Captain Shannon, “If you will just hurry up, you will
catch up with them,” which we did, in about two miles from there. The
first one of the party caught up with was the negro soldier driving the
horse and buggy, when a member of the advance guard rode up by the side
of him and shot him out of the buggy. It seemed as though the ball of
his big pistol sent his body about five feet on the roadside, which made
the scout smile, looking back at us.
At a house about a quarter of a mile ahead of us, we found two horses
hitched, which turned out to belong to the lieutenant and the private,
who had taken the old lady’s money. Shannon called back, “Don’t but two
of you stop here.” A couple of Shannon’s men threw their bridle reins
over the fence and rushed into the house, when immediately afterwards we
heard pistols rattle in that house. We then continued on this road to
where it enters the main county road, running parallel with the
Goldsboro & Weldon Railroad. Just before reaching the main county road
Captain Shannon halted us, when he went forward, looked up and down the
road, came back, commanded, “Form fours and charge!” I don’t think I
ever saw men going into a charge like Shannon’s men, all breaking ranks,
trying to get to the front, not knowing whether they were charging a
small body of thirty or fifty men or a whole brigade until they got into
the main county road, which disclosed about sixty or seventy mounted
infantry with their guns swung on their backs, at the mouth of the lane,
drinking and talking. The head of Shannon’s column entered the body of
the Yankees, shooting their way in among them. All offered to surrender,
throwing up their hands with only one gun fired by them and that by a
man about to enter a swamp below the field, firing back at us over his
shoulder. These cowardly devils were not soldiers, only in name, they
were a band of highwaymen and plunderers in the uniform of the United
States and the most of them loaded down with plunder of every
description.
We next proceeded on the main road towards Pikesville, taking a batch of
prisoners along with us, guarded by only two or three of Shannon’s
scouts. We found these plunderers at every house on the way to
Pikesville, a distance of five or six miles, and also in the town.
Pikesville was a town of about fifty or seventy-five inhabitants, a
blacksmith shop, store and postoffice, railroad station and a few
residences. On entering the town our party became very much scattered,
as we found Federals in nearly every house. A party of about six or
eight on horseback tried to escape, when I, with two or three of
Shannon’s boys, started after them, capturing the whole bunch.
Returning to town I noticed the house where we stopped the day before
and had such a tirade of abuse from the woman, of which Shannon’s boys
with me, knew nothing. I suggested to them to let us go by that house
and get a drink of water. The prisoners begged for water also. Riding up
to the house, the door opened and my good lady of the day before put in
her appearance, when I said to her, “Now, run and get your friends some
drinking water; they are very thirsty.” “No,” she said, “I wouldn’t give
them a drink of water to save their lives. Come in, sir, and see what
they did in my house.” I told her that I did not care to see it, but to
run and get some water for her friends, when she again started to abuse
the prisoners. I told her she must stop that, they were our prisoners
and could not be abused by her.
After getting together the prisoners taken in this town and leaving
about a half dozen men to guard them, somewhere near a hundred, we
started out on a short scout on the road we had run over after the
parties trying to make their escape. When about a mile and a half from
town in a straight lane, having very high rail fences on both sides, we
met about eighty or a hundred more, evidently on their way to town. The
head of their column halted, viewing one of their dead bodies lying in
the road, one of the men that was killed by our little party running
after them, trying to make their escape.
I forgot to mention when starting out on this last scout that I told
Shannon our party wanted to move in the advance guard, as we had hardly
got a shot, his men always keeping ahead of us and we did not want to go
back to the regiment and say we had been with Shannon’s scouts unable to
do any effective service. Captain Shannon replied, “All right; go ahead
and report to Bill Smith,” who was a first lieutenant and always
commanded the advance guard. When within about two hundred yards of this
column, viewing the body, I asked Smith, as he was moving us quite
rapidly, “What are you going to do; are you going to charge these
fellows?” He said, “Come on; come on.” I looked back and saw Shannon
coming up in a lope with about fifteen or eighteen men, then noticed the
Federal column getting restless and probably four or five of them break,
when I said to Smith, “Now is our time,” and we drove ahead, scattering
the whole business, capturing a number of prisoners, besides a number
left in the road.
We next collected all our prisoners in the town and found that perhaps
not more than seventy per cent could speak the English language and we
were told that these foreigners had just been imported from Europe,
rushed through Castle Garden, right to the army. They were told by the
recruiting agents in Europe that they would receive large bounties, good
pay and good treatment and be entitled to everything they captured,
which latter of course, proved the greatest inducement of all.
We camped with Shannon that night near the town, and parted with him the
next morning, they moving in the direction of Goldsboro, while we
started back to our army, which we never saw again until the night of
the day of the surrender, which was several weeks after.