by Sam Watkins
OLD JOE BROWN‘S PETS
By way of grim jest, and a fitting burlesque to tragic scenes, or, rather, to the thing called “glorious war,” old Joe Brown, then Governor of Georgia, sent in his militia. It was the richest picture of an army I ever saw. It beat Forepaugh's double-ringed circus.18
Every one was dressed in citizen's clothes, and the very best they had at that time. A few had double-barreled shotguns, but the majority had umbrellas and walking-sticks, and nearly every one had on a duster, a flat-bosomed “biled” shirt, and a plug hat; and, to make the thing more ridiculous, the dwarf and the giant were marching side by side; the knock-kneed by the side of the bowlegged; the driven-in by the side of the drawn-out; the pale and sallow dyspeptic, who looked like Alex. Stephens, and who seemed to have just been taken out of a chimney that smoked very badly, and whose diet was goobers and sweet potatoes, was placed beside the three hundred-pounder, who was dressed up to kill, and whose looks seemed to say, “I've got a substitute in the army, and twenty Negroes at home besides—h-a-a-m, h-a-a-m.”19
Now, that is the sort of army that old Joe Brown had when he seceded from the Southern Confederacy, declaring that each state was a separate sovereign government of itself; and, as old Joe Brown was an original secessionist, he wanted to exemplify the grand principles of secession, that had been advocated by Patrick Henry, John Randolph, of Roanoke, and John C. Calhoun, in all of whom he was a firm believer.20
I will say, however, in all due deference to the Georgia militia and old Joe Brown's pets, that there was many a gallant and noble fellow among them. I remember on one occasion that I was detailed to report to a captain of the Fourth Tennessee Regiment (Colonel Farquharson, called “Guidepost”); I have forgotten that captain's name. He was a small-sized man, with a large, long set of black whiskers. He was the captain, and I the corporal of the detail. We were ordered to take a company of the Georgia militia on a scout. We went away around to our extreme right wing, passing through Terry's mill pond, and over the old battlefield of the 22nd, and past the place where General Walker fell, when we came across two ladies. One of them kept going from one tree to another, and saying: “This pine tree, that pine tree; this pine tree, that pine tree.” In answer to our inquiry, they informed us that the young woman's husband was killed on the 22nd, and had been buried under a pine tree, and she was nearly crazy because she could not find his dead body.
We passed on, and as soon as we came in sight of the old line of Yankee breastworks, an unexpected volley of minnie balls was fired into our ranks, killing this captain of the Fourth Tennessee Regiment and killing and wounding seven or eight of the Georgia militia. I hallooed to lay down, as soon as possible, and a perfect whizz of minnie balls passed over, when I immediately gave the command of attention, forward, charge and capture that squad. That Georgia militia, every man of them, charged forward, and in a few moments we ran into a small squad of Yankees, and captured the whole “lay out.” We then carried back to camp the dead captain and the killed and wounded militia. I had seen a great many men killed and wounded, but some how or other these dead and wounded men, of that day, made a more serious impression on my mind than in any previous or subsequent battles. They were buried with all the honors of war and I never will forget the incidents and scenes of this day as long as I live.21
WE GO AFTER STONEMAN
One morning our regiment was ordered to march, double-quick, to the depot to take the cars for somewhere. The engine was under steam, and ready to start for that mysterious somewhere. The whistle blew long and loud, and away we went at break-neck speed for an hour, and drew up at a little place by the name of Jonesboro. The Yankees had captured the town, and were tearing up the railroad track. A regiment of Rebel infantry and a brigade of cavalry were already in line of battle in their rear. We jumped out of the cars and advanced to attack them in front. Our line had just begun to open a pretty brisk fire on the Yankee cavalry, when they broke, running right through and over the lines of the regiment of infantry and brigade of cavalry in their rear, the men opening ranks to get out of the way of the hoofs of their horses.
It was Stoneman's cavalry, upon its celebrated raid toward Macon and Andersonville to liberate the Federal prisoners.22
We went to work like beavers, and in a few hours the railroad track had been repaired so that we could pass. Every few miles we would find the track torn up, but we would get out of the cars, fix up the track, and light out again. We were charging a brigade of cavalry with a train of cars, as it were. They would try to stop our progress by tearing up the track, but we were crowding them a little too strong. At last they thought it was time to quit that foolishness, and then commenced a race between cavalry and cars for Macon, Georgia. The cars had to run exceedingly slow and careful, fearing a tear up or ambuscade, but at last Macon came in sight. Twenty-five or thirty thousand Federal prisoners were confined at this place, and it was poorly guarded and protected.
We feared that Stoneman would only march in, overpower the guards, and liberate the prisoners, and we would have some tall fighting to do, but on arriving at Macon, we found that Stoneman and all of his command had just surrendered to a brigade of cavalry and the Georgia militia, and we helped march the gentlemen inside the prison walls at Macon. They had furnished their own transportation, paying their own way and bearing their own expenses, and instead of liberating any prisoners, were themselves imprisoned. An extra detail was made as guard from our regiment to take them on to Andersonville, but I was not on this detail, so I remained until the detail returned.23
Macon is a beautiful place. Business was flourishing like a green bay tree. The people were good, kind, and clever to us. Everywhere the hospitality of their homes was proffered us. We were regarded as their liberators. They gave us all the good things they had—eating, drinking, etc. We felt our consequence, I assure you, reader. We felt we were heroes, indeed; but the benzene and other fluids became a little promiscuous and the libations of the boys a little too heavy.
They began to get boisterous—I might say, riotous. Some of the boys got to behaving badly, and would go into stores and places, and did many things they ought not to have done. In fact, the whole caboodle of them ought to have been carried to the guard-house. They were whooping, and yelling, and firing off their guns, just for the fun of the thing. I remember of going into a very nice family's house, and the old lady told the dog to go out, go out, sir! and remarked rather to herself, “Go out, go out! I wish you were killed, anyhow.” John says, “Madam, do you want that dog killed, sure enough?” She says, “Yes, I do. I do wish that he was dead.” Before I could even think or catch my breath, bang went John's gun, and the dog was weltering in his blood right on the good lady's floor, the top of his head entirely torn off. I confess, reader, I came very near jumping out of my skin, as it were, at the unexpected discharge of the gun. And other such scenes, I reckon, were being enacted elsewhere, but at last a detail was sent around to arrest all stragglers, and we were soon rolling back to Atlanta.
BELLUM LETHALE24
Well, after “jugging” Stoneman, we go back to Atlanta and occupy our same old place near the concrete house. We found everything exactly as we had left it, with the exception of the increased number of graybacks,25 which seemed to have propagated a thousand-fold since we left, and they were crawling about like ants, making little paths and tracks in the dirt as they wiggled and waddled about, hunting for ye old Rebel soldier. Sherman's two thirty-pound parrot guns were in the same position, and every now and then a lazy-looking shell would pass over, speeding its way on to Atlanta.
The old citizens had dug little cellars, which the soldiers called “gopher holes,” and the women and children were crowded together in these cellars, while Sherman was trying to burn the city over their heads. But, as I am not writing history, I refer you to any history of the war for Sherman's war record in and around Atlanta.26
As John and I started to go back, we thought we would visit the hospital. Great God!
I get sick today when I think of the agony, and suffering, and sickening stench and odor of dead and dying; of wounds and sloughing sores, caused by the deadly gangrene; of the groaning and wailing. I cannot describe it. I remember, I went in the rear of the building, and there I saw a pile of arms and legs, rotting and decomposing; and, although I saw thousands of horrifying scenes during the war, yet today I have no recollection in my whole life, of ever seeing anything that I remember with more horror than that pile of legs and arms that had been cut off our soldiers.27
As John and I went through the hospital, and were looking at the poor suffering fellows, I heard a weak voice calling, “Sam, O, Sam.” I went to the poor fellow, but did not recognize him at first, but soon found out that it was James Galbreath, the poor fellow who had been shot nearly in two on the 22nd of July. I tried to be cheerful, and said, “Hello, Galbreath, old fellow, I thought you were in heaven long before this.” He laughed a sort of dry, cracking laugh, and asked me to hand him a drink of water. I handed it to him. He then began to mumble and tell me something in a rambling and incoherent way, but all I could catch was for me to write to his family, who were living near Mt. Pleasant. I asked him if he was badly wounded. He only pulled down the blanket, that was all. I get sick when I think of it. The lower part of his body was hanging to the upper part by a shred, and all of his entrails were lying on the cot with him, the bile and other excrements exuding from them, and they full of maggots. I replaced the blanket as tenderly as I could, and then said, “Galbreath, good-bye.” I then kissed him on his lips and forehead, and left. As I passed on, he kept trying to tell me something, but I could not make out what he said, and fearing I would cause him to exert himself too much, I left.
It was the only field hospital that I saw during the whole war, and I have no desire to see another. Those hollow-eyed and sunken-cheeked sufferers, shot in every conceivable part of the body; some shrieking, and calling upon their mothers; some laughing the hard, cackling laugh of the sufferer without hope, and some cursing like troopers, and some writhing and groaning as their wounds were being bandaged and dressed. I saw a man of the Twenty-seventh, who had lost his right hand, another his leg, then another whose head was laid open, and I could see his brain thump, and another with his under jaw shot off; in fact, wounded in every manner possible.
Ah! reader, there is no glory for the private soldier, much less a conscript. James Galbreath was a conscript, as was also Fain King. Mr. King was killed at Chickamauga. He and Galbreath were conscripted and joined Company H at the same time. Both were old men, and very poor, with large families at home; and they were forced to go to war against their wishes, while their wives and little children were at home without the necessaries of life. The officers have all the glory. Glory is not for the private soldier, such as die in the hospitals, being eat up with the deadly gangrene, and being imperfectly waited on. Glory is for generals, colonels, majors, captains, and lieutenants. They have all the glory, and when the poor private wins battles by dint of sweat, hard marches, camp and picket duty, fasting and broken bones, the officers get the glory. The private's pay was eleven dollars per month, if he got it; the general's pay was three hundred dollars per month, and he always got his.
I am not complaining. These things happened sixteen to twenty years ago. Men who never fired a gun, nor killed a Yankee during the whole war, are today the heroes of the war. Now, I tell you what I think about it: I think that those of us who fought as private soldiers, fought as much for glory as the general did, and those of us who stuck it out to the last, deserve more praise than the general who resigned because some other general was placed in command over him. A general could resign. That was honorable. A private could not resign, nor choose his branch of service, and if he deserted, it was death.
THE SCOUT AND DEATH OF A YANKEE LIEUTENANT
General Hood had sent off all his cavalry, and a detail was made each day of so many men for a scout, to find out all we could about the movements of the Yankees. Colonel George Porter, of the Sixth Tennessee, was in command of the detail. We passed through Atlanta, and went down the railroad for several miles, and then made a flank movement toward where we expected to come in contact with the Yankees. When we came to a skirt of woods, we were deployed as skirmishers. Colonel Porter ordered us to reprime our guns and to advance at twenty-five paces apart, being deployed as skirmishers, and to keep under cover as much as possible. He need not have told us this, because we had not learned war for nothing. We would run from one tree to another, and then make a careful reconnoiter before proceeding to another. We had begun to get a little careless, when bang! bang! bang!
It seemed that we had got into a Yankee ambush. The firing seemed to be from all sides, and was rattling among the leaves and bushes. It appeared as if some supernatural, infernal battle was going on and the air was full of smoke. We had not seen the Yankees. I ran to a tree to my right, and just as I got to it, I saw my comrade sink to the ground, clutching at the air as he fell dead. I kept trying to see the Yankees, so that I might shoot. I had been looking a hundred yards ahead, when happening to look not more than ten paces from me, I saw a big six-foot Yankee with a black feather in his hat, aiming deliberately at me. I dropped to the ground, and at the same moment heard the report, and my hat was knocked off in the bushes.
I remained perfectly still, and in a few minutes I saw a young Yankee lieutenant peering through the bushes. I would rather not have killed him, but I was afraid to fire and afraid to run, and yet I did not wish to kill him. He was as pretty as a woman, and somehow I thought I had met him before. Our eyes met. He stood like a statue. He gazed at me with a kind of scared expression. I still did not want to kill him, and am sorry today that I did, for I believe I could have captured him, but I fired, and saw the blood spurt all over his face. He was the prettiest youth I ever saw. When I fired, the Yankees broke and run, and I went up to the boy I had killed, and the blood was gushing out of his mouth. I was sorry.
ATLANTA FORSAKEN
One morning about the break of day our artillery opened along our breastworks, scaring us almost to death, for it was the first guns that had been fired for more than a month. We sprang to our feet and grabbed our muskets, and ran out and asked some one what did that mean. We were informed that they were “feeling” for the Yankees. The comment that was made by the private soldier was simply two words, and those two words were “O, shucks.” The Yankees had gone—no one knew whither—and our batteries were shelling the woods, feeling for them.
“O, shucks.”
“Hello,” says Hood, “Whar in the Dickens and Tom Walker are them Yanks, hey? Feel for them with long-range ‘feelers’.” A boom, boom. “Can anybody tell me whar them Yanks are? Send out a few more ‘feelers.’ The feelers in the shape of cannon balls will bring them to taw.” Boom, boom, boom.
For the want of a nail the shoe was lost,
For the want of a shoe the horse was lost,
For the want of a horse the general was lost,
For the want of a general the battle was lost.
Forrest's cavalry had been sent off somewhere. Wheeler's cavalry had been sent away yonder in the rear of the enemy to tear up the railroad and cut off their supplies, etc., and we had to find out the movements of the enemy by “feeling for them” by shelling the vacant woods. The Yankees were at that time twenty-five miles in our rear, “a hundred thousand strong,” at a place called Jonesboro. I do not know how it was found out that they were at Jonesboro, but anyhow, the news had come and Cheatham's corps had to go and see about it.28
Stewart's corps must hold Atlanta, and Stephen D. Lee's corps must be stretched at proper distance, so that the word could be passed backward and forward as to how they were getting along. As yet it is impossible to tell of the movements of the enemy, because our cannon balls had not come back and reported any movements to us. We had always heard that cannon balls were blind, and we did not suppose they could see to find their way back. Well, our corps made a forced
march for a day and a night, and passed the word back that we had seen some signs of the Yankees being in that vicinity, and thought perhaps, a small portion—about a hundred thousand—were nigh about there somewhere. Says he, “It's a strange thing you don't know; send out your feelers.” We sent out a few feelers and they report back very promptly that the Yankees are here sure enough, or that is what our feelers say. Pass the word up the line. The word is passed from mouth to mouth of Lee's skirmish line twenty-five miles back to Atlanta. Well, if that be the case, we will set fire to all of our army stores, spike all our cannon, and play “smash” generally, and forsake Atlanta.29
In the meantime, just hold on where you are till Stewart gets through his job of blowing up arsenals, burning up the army stores, and spiking the cannon, and we will send our Negro boy Caesar down to the horse lot to see if he can't catch old Nance, but she is such a fool with that young suckling colt of hers, that it takes him almost all day to catch her, and if the draw-bars happen to be down, she'll get in the clover patch, and I don't think he will catch her today. But if he don't catch her, I'll ride Balaam anyhow. He's got a mighty sore back, and needs a shoe put on his left hind foot, and he cut his ankle with a broken shoe on his fore foot, and has not been fed today. However, I will be along by-and-by. Stewart, do you think you will be able to get through with your job of blowing up by day after tomorrow, or by Saturday at twelve o'clock? Lee, pass the word down to Cheatham, and ask him what he thinks the Yankees are doing. Now, Kinlock, get my duster and umbrella, and bring out Balaam.
Now, reader, that was the impression made on the private's mind at that time.