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

by Sam Watkins

  On June 17, 1862, General Braxton Bragg replaced Beauregard as the Confederate commander because Beauregard took an unauthorized leave of absence to recover from an illness. When President Davis learned of the unauthorized leave, he immediately put Bragg in charge. Bragg was from North Carolina and had married into a wealthy Louisiana family. He graduated from West Point in 1837, ranking fifth is a class of fifty. He established a reputation as a disciplinarian with the result that he commanded some of the South's best-drilled troops. But he was not well liked among the soldiers, partly because he had little reluctance to discipline deserters with execution.

  The Conscription Act passed on April 16, 1862, shortly after Shiloh. All males eighteen to thirty-five were included, with a few exemptions. By September 1862, the upper age limit was raised to forty-five, and in October 1864, the lower age limit dropped to seventeen.

  2. This second “law” that Watkins refers to was an amendment, passed in October 1862, to the Conscription Act.

  3. General John Bell Hood first achieved fame in Robert E. Lee's army. Later he commanded the Army of Tennessee, from July 17, 1864, until being replaced on January 23, 1865, after disastrous defeats at Franklin and Nashville, Tennessee.

  4. Early in the War, Bragg developed a reputation as a strict disciplinarian. It served him well from the viewpoint of his superiors. For example, when his troops from the Gulf Coast joined the Confederate concentration at Corinth in preparation for the showdown battle with Grant that would become Shiloh, General Johnston asked Bragg to take charge of improving discipline for other troops joining the concentration. However, since the rank-and-file soldiers were the ones being disciplined, they were naturally more inclined to be resentful. Furthermore, as the war progressed, a number of Bragg's subordinate officers came to dislike him, and their hostility, no doubt, impacted the average “webfoot.”

  5. A tune of English origin formerly played to accompany the expulsion of a soldier from the army.

  6. There was a drought at the time, and Corinth lacked one vital military necessity: potable water. Sluggish streams and swamps ringed the town, which one Southern general called a “sickly, malarial spot fit only for alligators and snakes.” On paper, there were over one hundred thousand Confederate soldiers in Corinth, but by mid-May 1862, nearly half were either absent or too sick to fight.

  7. Desertion was rampant, sometimes involving entire companies.

  8. Union General Benjamin Prentiss was surrounded in a sunken road that became known as the “Hornet's Nest” because of the swarm of minié balls that greeted each Confederate attack. After desperate fighting, he was forced to surrender his entire command of about two thousand survivors. Apparently, Rowland was among those taken prisoner and, therefore, an evident deserter.

  9. A phosphorescent light said by folklore to hover over swampy ground at night, possibly caused by spontaneous combustion of gases emitted by rotting organic matter. It has paranormal connotations.

  10. Feild was educated at the Kentucky Military Institute, graduating in 1856. The institute was near Louisville and closed in 1971. His family was from near Pulaski, Tennessee.

  11. Joe Lee survived the war, living until 1921. He became a tax assessor in Klamath Falls, Oregon, in 1904. His father was a cousin to Robert E. Lee. He was the same age as Watkins.

  FOUR

  TUPELO

  WE WENT INTO SUMMER QUARTERS at Tupelo. Our principal occupation at this place was playing poker, chuck-a-luck, and cracking graybacks (lice). Every soldier had a brigade of lice on him, and I have seen fellows so busily engaged in cracking them that it reminded me of an old woman knitting. At first the boys would go off in the woods and hide to louse themselves, but that was unnecessary, the ground fairly crawled with lice.1

  Pharaoh's people, when they were resisting old Moses, never enjoyed the curse of lice more than we did. The boys would frequently have a louse race. There was one fellow who was winning all the money; his lice would run quicker and crawl faster than anybody's lice. We could not understand it. If some fellow happened to catch a fierce-looking louse, he would call on Dornin for a race. Dornin would come and always win the stake. The lice were placed in plates—this was the race course—and the first that crawled off was the winner. At last we found out D.'s trick; he always heated his plate.2

  Billy P. said he had no lice on him.

  “Did you ever look?”

  “No.”

  “How do you know then?”

  “If ignorance is bliss ‘tis folly to be wise,” said Billy.

  “Why, there is one crawling on your bosom now.”

  Billy took him and put him back in his bosom and said to the louse, “You stay there now; this makes the fourth time I have put you back, and if I catch you out again today I'll martyr you.”

  Billy was philosophic—the death of one louse did not stop the breed.

  THE COURT-MARTIAL AT TUPELO

  At this place was held the grand court-martial.3

  Almost every day we would hear a discharge of musketry, and knew that some poor, trembling wretch had bid farewell to mortal things here below. It seemed to be but a question of time with all of us as to when we too would be shot. We were afraid to chirp. So far now as patriotism was concerned, we had forgotten all about that, and did not now so much love our country as we feared Bragg. Men were being led to the death stake every day. I heard of many being shot, but did not see but two men shot myself. I do not know to what regiment they belonged, but I remember that they were mere beardless boys. I did not learn for what crime or the magnitude of their offenses. They might have deserved death for all I know.

  I saw an old man, about sixty years old, whose name was Dave Brewer, and another man, about forty-five, by the name of Rube Franklin, whipped. There was many a man whipped and branded that I never saw or heard tell of. But the reason I remembered these two was that they belonged to Company A of the 23rd Tennessee Regiment, and I knew many men in the regiment.

  These two men were hung up by the hands, after having their heads shaved, to a tree, put there for the purpose, with the prongs left on them, and one hand was stretched toward one prong and the other hand to another prong, their feet, perhaps, just touching the ground. The man who did the whipping had a thick piece of sole-leather, the end of which was cut in three strips, and this tacked on to the end of a paddle. After the charges and specifications had been read (both men being stark naked), the whipper “lit in” on Rube, who was the youngest. I do not think he intended to hit as hard as he did, but, being excited himself, he blistered Rube from head to foot. Thirty-nine lashes was always the number. Now, three times thirty-nine makes one hundred and seventeen. When he struck at all, one lick would make three whelps.

  When he had finished Rube, the Captain commanding the whipping squad told him to lay it on old man Brewer as light as the law would allow, that old man Brewer was so old that he would die—that he could not stand it. He struck old man Dave Brewer thirty-nine lashes, but they were laid on light. Old Dave didn't beg and squall like Rube did. He j-e-s-t did whip old man Dave. Like the old preacher who caught the bear on Sunday. They had him up before the church, agreed to let him off if he did not again set his trap. “Well,” he said, “brethren, I j-e-s-t did set it.”

  RAIDING ON ROASTINGEARS4

  At this place General Bragg issued an order authorizing citizens to defend themselves against the depredations of soldiers—to shoot them down if caught depredating.

  Well, one day Byron Richardson and myself made a raid on an old citizen's roastingear patch. We had pulled about all the corn that we could carry. I had my arms full and was about starting for camp, when an old citizen raised up and said, “Stop there! Drop that corn.” He had a double-barreled shotgun cocked and leveled at my breast.

  “Come and go with me to General Bragg's headquarters. I intend to take you there, by the living God!”

  I was in for it. Directed to go in front, I was being marched to Bragg's headquarters. I could see
the devil in the old fellow's eye. I tried to beg off with good promises, but the old fellow was deaf to all entreaty. I represented to him all of our hardships and suffering. But the old fellow was inexorable. I was being steadily carried toward Bragg's headquarters. I was determined not to see General Bragg, even if the old citizen shot me in the back. When all at once a happy thought struck me.

  Says I, “Mister, Byron Richardson is in your field, and if you will go back we can catch him and you can take both of us to General Bragg.” The old fellow's spunk was up. He had captured me so easy, he no doubt thought he could whip a dozen. We went back a short distance, and there was Byron, who had just climbed over the fence and had his arms full, when the old citizen, diverted from me, leveled his double-barrel at Byron, when I made a grab for his gun, which was accidentally discharged in the air, and with the assistance of Byron, we had the old fellow and his gun both. The table was turned. We made the old fellow gather as much as he could carry, and made him carry it nearly to camp, when we dismissed him, a wiser if not a better and richer man. We took his gun and bent it around a black jack tree.5 He was at the soldiers' mercy.

  * * *

  1. Lice were a not-much-discussed but common problem. Another memoir, Rebel Private: Front and Rear, by William Fletcher, tells of similar experiences together with the shame and disbelief initially felt.

  2. The incident is similar to a fictional story by Mark Twain, “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County,” which was published seven months after the Civil War ended.

  3. During much of the summer of 1862, Watkins's regiment would be at Tupelo.

  4. Roastingears is an old term characteristic of an era when pioneers cooked ears of corn by burying them in hot coals.

  5. A black jack is a type of oak tree.

  FIVE

  KENTUCKY

  WE GO TO KENTUCKY

  After being thoroughly reorganized at Tupelo, and the troops had recovered their health and spirits, we made an advance into Kentucky.1 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.2

  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. Munfordville had been captured with five thousand prisoners. New recruits were continually joining our ranks.3

  Camp Dick Robinson, that immense pile of army stores, had fallen into our hands.4 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.5

  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 Munfordville, 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 Munfordville?” He would answer, “five miles.” It seemed to me we traveled a hundred miles and were always within five miles of Munfordville.

  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. Munfordville had surrendered.6 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.7

  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 biscuits. 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 Feild 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.

&
nbsp; 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.8

  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.