Co. Aytch, or a Side Show of the Big Show

by Sam Watkins

  2. Rifles for Watie is a 1957 Newbery Award winner for children's fiction. Most of the novel concerns Civil War events in the Indian territory of present-day eastern Oklahoma.

  PUBLISHER'S NOTICE1

  Eighteen years ago, the first edition of this book, Co. H., First Tennessee Regiment, was published by the author, Mr. Sam R. Watkins, of Columbia, Tenn. A limited edition of two thousand copies was printed and sold. For nearly twenty years this work has been out of print and the owners of copies of it hold them so precious that it is impossible to purchase one. To meet a demand, so strong as to be almost irresistible the Chattanooga Times has printed a second edition of 2000 copies, which to soldiers of the Army of the Tennessee and the Army of the Cumberland, between whom many battles were fought, it will prove of intense interest, serving to re-call many scenes and incidents of battle field and camp in which they were the chief actors. To them and to all other readers we respectfully commend this book as being the best and most impersonal history of any army ever written.

  The Chattanooga Times.

  Chattanooga, Tenn., Oct. 1, 1900.

  1. Sam Watkins's memoir was first serialized in the Columbia (TN) Herald during the winter of 1882–83. This notice is for a second edition published by the Chattanooga Times around the turn of the nineteenth century. Several years earlier, owners of the Chattanooga Times purchased and revived a failing New York newspaper—the New York Times. On the date that the Chattanooga Times reprinted Co. Aytch, the Chattanooga and New York newspapers were owned by Adolph Ochs. During the Civil War, his father was a Union officer, but his mother's sympathies were with the South. After the war she was a prominent member of the United Daughters of the Confederacy. At her funeral, her coffin was draped in a Confederate flag.

  PREFACE

  Co. Aytch—This week's Herald contains the last number of Co. Aytch that will be published in the paper. The generals, and President, and Vice President, and other high officials have published their accounts of the war, but Sam Watkins is the first high private who has written up the common soldier side of the matter. In big, gilt-edge books, the general, the President, and the Vice-President, tell about their plans, their battle, their retreats, their measures, and their ideas, and not a word about what the poor, sore footed, hungry, and naked soldier felt.

  In Co. Aytch we see the old “webfoot,”2 dressed in a dirty, greasy, gray suit—or rather non-suit—a cotton blanket thrown across his shoulder, and fastened under his cartridge box belt; a greasy, dirty haversack hanging down—very thin and flabby; with shoes of untanned leather. There he goes, foot-sore, tired, and hungry, but chipper and sassy, and ready for battle.

  In Co. Aytch we see this same “webfoot” in camp, cooking his rations—corn meal bread, corn meal coffee, corn meal soup, blue beef, with not an eye of grease on it. He lies down on the cold ground, in an old thin blanket, and shivers through the night.

  In Co. Aytch we hear this “webfoot” talking to his comrades, cheering their drooping spirits, discussing the situation, defending the general, hoping for final victory, and a glorious return home to father, mother, and sweetheart.

  In Co. Aytch we see this same “webfoot,” hungry, ragged, dirty, and footsore, “on the battle's perilous edge,” the light of victory in his eye, a gun with a gleaming bayonet in his hands, springing forward like a deer, a ringing shout upon his lips, rushing up to the breastworks, behind which belch Napoleon guns3 and volleys of musketry; see him cross the abatis at a bound; see him as he stands upon the enemy's ramparts, shouting victory!

  In Co. Aytch we see this same “webfoot” shot down by a minnie4 ball, and lying cold and stark in death, and thrown into a common shallow grave, unhonored, unknown, and unsung, far away from fond loved ones.

  In Co. Aytch we see other soldiers, driven by hunger, stealing hogs, others deserting and going home.

  Every old soldier, and every son of an old soldier, should have a copy of it.

  —Columbia Herald.

  * * *

  2. In this context a “webfoot” is a bare-footed Confederate soldier. On the federal side, the term “webfoot” sometimes identified men in the Navy.

  3. A Napoleon gun was a common type of Civil War field artillery. It typically fired a twelve-pound projectile but could also be loaded with canister and grape-shot shells, which transformed the weapon into a massive shotgun. When Civil War battle reports tell of “capturing guns” or “deploying guns,” the normal meaning of “guns” is artillery.

  4. Officially pronounced “min-NAY” after the French inventor Claude-Etienne Minié, the vernacular “mini” ball was a conical shaped bullet used by most muzzle-loading rifles in the Civil War.

  ONE

  RETROSPECTIVE

  “WE ARE ONE AND UNDIVIDED”

  About twenty years ago, I think it was—I won't be certain, though—a man whose name, if I remember correctly, was William L. Yancey1—I write only from memory, and this was a long time ago—took a strange and peculiar notion that the sun rose in the east and set in the west, and that the compass pointed north and south. Now, everybody knew at the time that it was but the idiosyncrasy of an unbalanced mind, and that the United States of America had no north, no south, no east, no west. Well, he began to preach the strange doctrine of there being such a thing. He began to have followers. As you know, it matters not how absurd, ridiculous and preposterous doctrines may be preached, there will be some followers.

  Well, one man by the name of (I think it was) Rhett, said it out loud. He was told to “s-h-e-e.” Then another fellow by the name (I remember this one because it sounded like a graveyard) Toombs said so, and he was told to “sh-sh-ee-ee.” Then after a while whole heaps of people began to say that they thought that there was a north and a south; and after a while hundreds and thousands and millions said that there was a south. But they were the persons who lived in the direction that the water courses run.2

  Now, the people who lived where the water courses started from came down to see about it, and they said, “Gents, you are very much mistaken. We came over in the Mayflower, and we used to burn witches for saying that the sun rose in the east and set in the west, because the sun neither rises nor sets, the earth simply turns on its axis, and we know, because we are Pure(i)tans.” The spokesman of the party was named (I think I remember his name because it always gave me the blues when I heard it) Horrors Greeley;3 and another person by the name of Charles Sumner,4 said there ain't any north or south, east or west, and you shan't say so, either. Now, the other people who lived in the direction that the water courses run, just raised their bristles and continued saying that there is a north and there is a south. When those at the head of the water courses come out furiously mad, to coerce those in the direction that water courses run, and to make them take it back. Well, they went to gouging and biting, to pulling and scratching at a furious rate.

  One side elected a captain by the name of Jeff Davis, and known as one-eyed Jeff, and a first lieutenant by the name of Aleck Stephens, commonly styled Smart Aleck.5 The other side selected as captain a son of Nancy Hanks, of Bowling Green, and a son of old Bob Lincoln, the rail-splitter, and whose name was Abe.6 Well, after he was elected captain, they elected as first lieutenant an individual of doubtful blood by the name of Hannibal Hamlin, being a descendant of the generation of Ham, the bad son of old Noah, who meant to curse him blue, but overdid the thing, and cursed him black.7

  Well, as I said before, they went to fighting, but old Abe's side got the best of the argument. But in getting the best of the argument they called in all the people and wise men of other nations of the earth, and they, too, said that America had no cardinal points, and that the sun did not rise in the east and set in the west, and that the compass did not point either north or south.

  Well, then, Captain Jeff Davis' side gave it up and quit, and they, too, went to saying that there is no north, no south, no east, no west. Well, “us boys” all took a small part in the fracas, and Shep, the prophet, rema
rked that the day would come when those who once believed that the American continent had cardinal points would be ashamed to own it. That day has arrived. America has no north, no south, no east, no west; the sun rises over the hills and sets over the mountains, the compass just points up and down, and we can laugh now at the absurd notion of there being a north and a south.8

  Well, reader, let me whisper in your ear. I was in the row, and the following pages will tell what part I took in the little unpleasant misconception of there being such a thing as a north and south.

  THE BLOODY CHASM

  In these memoirs, after the lapse of twenty years, we propose to fight our “battles o'er again.” To do this is but a pastime and pleasure, as there is nothing that so much delights the old soldier as to revisit the scenes and battlefields with which he was once so familiar, and to recall the incidents, though trifling they may have been at the time.

  The histories of the Lost Cause are all written out by “big bugs,” generals and renowned historians, and like the fellow who called a turtle a “cooter,” being told that no such word as cooter was in Webster's dictionary, remarked that he had as much right to make a dictionary as Mr. Webster or any other man; so have I to write a history.

  But in these pages I do not pretend to write the history of the war. I only give a few sketches and incidents that came under the observation of a “high private” in the rear ranks of the rebel army. Of course, the histories are all correct. They tell of great achievements of great men, who wear the laurels of victory; have grand presents given them; high positions in civil life; presidents of corporations; governors of states; official positions, etc., and when they die, long obituaries are published, telling their many virtues, their distinguished victories, etc., and when they are buried, the whole country goes in mourning and is called upon to buy an elegant monument to erect over the remains of so distinguished and brave a general, etc.

  But in the following pages I propose to tell of the fellows who did the shooting and killing, the fortifying and ditching, the sweeping of the streets, the drilling, the standing guard, picket and videt,9 and who drew (or were to draw) eleven dollars per month and rations, and also drew the ramrod and tore the cartridge.

  Pardon me should I use the personal pronoun “I” too frequently, as I do not wish to be called egotistical, for I only write of what I saw as a humble private in the rear rank in an infantry regiment, commonly called “webfoot.” Neither do I propose to make this a connected journal, for I write entirely from memory, and you must remember, kind reader, that these things happened twenty years ago and twenty years is a long time in the life of any individual.

  I was twenty-one years old then, and at that time I was not married. Now I have a house full of young “rebels,” clustering around my knees and bumping against my elbow, while I write these reminiscences of the war of secession, rebellion, state rights, slavery, or our rights in the territories, or by whatever other name it may be called. These are all with the past now, and the North and South have long ago “shaken hands across the bloody chasm.” The flag of the Southern cause has been furled never to be again unfurled; gone like a dream of yesterday, and lives only in the memory of those who lived through those bloody days and times.

  EIGHTEEN HUNDRED AND SIXTY-ONE

  Reader mine, did you live in that stormy period? In the year of our Lord eighteen hundred and sixty-one, do you remember those stirring times? Do you recollect in that year, for the first time in your life, of hearing “Dixie” and the “Bonnie Blue Flag”? Fort Sumter was fired upon from Charleston by troops under General Beauregard, and Major Anderson, of the Federal army, surrendered. The die was cast; war was declared; Lincoln called for troops from Tennessee and all the Southern states, but Tennessee, loyal to her Southern sister states, passed the ordinance of secession, and enlisted under the Stars and Bars. From that day on, every person, almost, was eager for the war, and we were all afraid it would be over and we not be in the fight. Companies were made up, regiments organized; left, left, left, was heard from morning till night. By the right flank, file left, march, were familiar sounds. Everywhere could be seen Southern cockades made by the ladies and our sweethearts. And some who afterwards became Union men made the most fiery secession speeches. Flags made by the ladies were presented to companies, and to hear the young orators tell of how they would protect that flag, and that they would come back with the flag or come not at all, and if they fell they would fall with their backs to the field and their feet to the foe, would fairly make our hair stand on end with intense patriotism, and we wanted to march right off and whip twenty Yankees. But we soon found out that the glory of war was at home among the ladies and not upon the field of blood and carnage of death, where our comrades were mutilated and torn by shot and shell. And to see the cheek blanch and to hear the fervent prayer, aye, I might say the agony of mind were very different indeed from the patriotic times at home.

  CAMP CHEATHAM

  After being drilled and disciplined at Camp Cheatham,10 under the administrative ability of General R. C. Foster, 3rd, for two months, we, the First, Third and Eleventh Tennessee Regiments—Maney, Brown and Rains—learned of the advance of McClellan's army into Virginia, toward Harper's Ferry and Bull Run.

  The Federal army was advancing all along the line. They expected to march right into the heart of the South, set the Negroes free, take our property, and whip the rebels back into the Union. But they soon found that secession was a bigger mouthful than they could swallow at one gobble. They found the people of the South in earnest.

  Secession may have been wrong in the abstract, and has been tried and settled by the arbitrament of the sword and bayonet, but I am as firm in my convictions today of the right of secession as I was in 1861. The South is our country, the North is the country of those who live there. We are an agricultural people; they are a manufacturing people. They are the descendants of the good old Puritan Plymouth Rock stock, and we of the South from the proud and aristocratic stock of Cavaliers.11 We believe in the doctrine of State rights, they in the doctrine of centralization.

  John C. Calhoun, Patrick Henry, and John Randolph, of Roanoke, saw the venom under their wings, and warned the North of the consequences, but they laughed at them. We only fought for our State rights, they for Union and power. The South fell battling under the banner of State rights, but yet grand and glorious even in death. Now, reader, please pardon the digression. It is every word that we will say in behalf of the rights of secession in the following pages. The question has been long ago settled and is buried forever, never in this age or generation to be resurrected.

  The vote of the regiment was taken, and we all voted to go to Virginia. The Southern Confederacy had established its capital at Richmond.

  A man by the name of Jackson, who kept a hotel in Maryland, had raised the Stars and Bars, and a Federal officer by the name of Ellsworth tore it down, and Jackson had riddled his body with buckshot from a double-barreled shotgun. First blood for the South.12

  Everywhere the enemy were advancing; the red clouds of war were booming up everywhere, but at this particular epoch, I refer you to the history of that period.

  A private soldier is but an automaton, a machine that works by the command of a good, bad, or indifferent engineer, and is presumed to know nothing of all these great events. His business is to load and shoot, stand picket, videt, etc., while the officers sleep, or perhaps die on the field of battle and glory, and his obituary and epitaph but “one” remembered among the slain, but to what company, regiment, brigade or corps he belongs, there is no account; he is soon forgotten.

  A long line of box cars was drawn up at Camp Cheatham one morning in July, the bugle sounded to strike tents and to place everything on board the cars. We old comrades have gotten together and laughed a hundred times at the plunder and property that we had accumulated, compared with our subsequent scanty wardrobe. Every soldier had enough blankets, shirts, pants and old boots to last a year, and the empty
bottles and jugs would have set up a first-class drug store. In addition, every one of us had his gun, cartridge-box, knapsack and three days' rations, a pistol on each side and a long Bowie knife, that had been presented to us by William Wood, of Columbia, Tenn. We got in and on top of the box cars, the whistle sounded, and amid the waving of hats, handkerchiefs and flags, we bid a long farewell and forever to old Camp Cheatham.

  Arriving at Nashville, the citizens turned out en masse to receive us, and here again we were reminded of the good old times and the “gal we left behind us.” Ah, it is worth soldiering to receive such welcomes as this.

  The Rev. Mr. Elliott invited us to his college grove, where had been prepared enough of the good things of earth to gratify the tastes of the most fastidious epicure. And what was most novel, we were waited on by the most beautiful young ladies (pupils of his school). It was charming, I tell you. Rev. C. D. Elliott was our Brigade Chaplain all through the war, and Dr. C. T. Quintard the Chaplain of the First Tennessee Regiment—two of the best men who ever lived. (Quintard is the present Bishop of Tennessee).

  ON THE ROAD

  Leaving Nashville, we went bowling along twenty or thirty miles an hour, as fast as steam could carry us. At every town and station citizens and ladies were waving their handkerchiefs and hurrahing for Jeff Davis and the Southern Confederacy. Magnificent banquets were prepared for us all along the entire route. It was one magnificent festival from one end of the line to the other. At Chattanooga, Knoxville, Bristol, Farmville, Lynchburg, everywhere, the same demonstrations of joy and welcome greeted us. Ah, those were glorious times; and you, reader, see why the old soldier loves to live over again that happy period.

  But the Yankees are advancing on Manassas. July 21st finds us a hundred miles from that fierce day's battle. That night, after the battle is fought and won, our train draws up at Manassas Junction.