Under The Stars And Bars Part 8

Pa.s.sing some of these veterans one day on the march one of them noticed my chevrons and sang out to his comrades: "Look there, boys. I've often hearn of "two and a dog" but I'll be blamed if there ain't "three and a dog." I reckon that's the way they play kyards on the coast." The laugh that followed convinced me that my lack of familiarity with the mysteries of the card table was not shared by those who heard the jest.

STRIPES ON THE WRONG SIDE.

While we suffered from deficiencies on other lines in the summer of '64, there was certainly no lack of rainy weather during that campaign. The roads over which we tramped were composed largely of a red, adhesive clay. The writer's physical conformation gave him some right to be cla.s.sed with the knock-kneed species of the genus h.o.m.o, and in marching over the wet clay hills, the red pigment began at his ankles and by successive contact, traveled gradually up the inside seams of his grey trousers until those seams and an inch-wide s.p.a.ce on either side were covered for almost their entire length. Pa.s.sing one day a division resting by the roadside, one of them noticed the peculiar condition of my bifurcated garment, and sang out to me: "h.e.l.lo, my friend; you've got the stripe on the wrong side of your pants." I could not deny the soft impeachment and enjoyed the laugh raised at my expense as much as did my comrades.

A CLOSE SHAVE.

The battle of Resaca began May 14, '64. Walker's division, to which we belonged, was held in reserve during the morning and at 12 p. m., as the fighting grew fiercer, we were ordered up to reinforce Stewart's division in our front. A pontoon bridge had been laid across the Oostenaula river and a courier stationed on its bank to hurry the men across, as the railroad embankment on the other side would protect them from the fire of a Federal battery, which had secured the exact range of the road over which we were pa.s.sing. As we approached the bridge Capt.

Martin, commanding the company next in our front, halted the column a moment to hear what the courier was saying. As the march was resumed, a solid shot from the battery struck directly in a file of fours in Martin's company killing two and wounding a third, not more than ten feet from where I stood. The time occupied in the halt would have about sufficed to have covered the intervening distance, and certainly saved the lives of some of the Oglethorpes and possibly my own. Crossing the river, Gen. W. H. T. Walker pa.s.sed us going to the front and as he rode by, another shot from the battery struck immediately behind him, barely missing his horse. Glancing around at the dust it had raised and turning to us with a smile on his face, he said, "Go it boots," and galloped on to the head of the division. On this, as well as on every other occasion when under fire, he seemed not only absolutely indifferent to danger, but really to enjoy its presence. Gen. Cabell, in recalling his a.s.sociation with Gen. Walker in the '60's, said that battle always brought to his eyes an unusual glitter and that he thought him the bravest man he had ever known.

A hero in three wars, severely wounded at Okeechobee, Fla., and at Molino Del Rey and Chapultpec, Mex., he fell at last gallantly leading his division at the battle of Atlanta, July 22, '64, and I am sure no battle soil on G.o.d's green earth in all the ages was ever stained by braver or by n.o.bler blood than William Henry Walker's.

A TWILIGHT PRAYER MEETING.

On May 19, '64, Sherman and Johnston were fronting each other near Kingston, Ga. In the skirmis.h.i.+ng that day the Oglethorpes had suffered some casualties, among them one that saddened all the company. Hugh Legare Hill, son of Hon. Joshua Hill, a beardless boy, had been shot through the head and instantly killed. He had joined us some months before at Thunderbolt and becoming restive under the inaction of coast service, had applied for a transfer to Johnston's army. Chafing under the delay brought on by military red tape in such matters, and anxious to secure a place on the firing line he had urged the officers to press the matter as he wanted to reach his new command in time for the opening of the spring campaign. Before the papers were returned our regiment was ordered to Dalton and the transfer was abandoned.

Poor Legare! The spring campaign had not yet drifted into summer before his bright young life, that knew no other season, but its spring, had found its sad and sudden ending on the firing line, a place for which he longed so ardently and met so bravely.

In the evening of that day we occupied a line near Ca.s.s Station, a line chosen by Johnston for a general and decisive engagement with Sherman's army. The Fabian policy, that had marked the campaign from its opening, was to be ended. The gage of battle was thrown down and Atlanta's fate was to be settled before another sunset. Every arrangement for the coming conflict was made and the men ready and anxious for the fray were resting on their arms. At the twilight hour two members of the Oglethorpes left their places in the ranks and retired to a quiet spot in the forest not far away to talk with G.o.d. No church spire raised its lofty summit heavenward. Under the open sky in one of "G.o.d's first temples," as dusk was deepening into night, they kneeled together and each in turn, in tones of earnest supplication, asked for G.o.d's protecting care upon themselves and on their comrades in the coming battle and for His blessing on the flag for which they fought and prayed. And when their prayers were ended, they pledged each other that if it was the fate of either one to fall, the other would act a brother's part and give such aid and comfort as he could.

Returning to their places in the line, they wrapped their worn, grey blankets around them and lay down under the starlight to pa.s.s in calm and quiet sleep, the night before the battle. I have attended many larger prayer meetings since that day; I have heard many pet.i.tions to a Throne of Grace, clothed in more cultured phrase, and yet but few that seemed more earnest or filled with simpler trust in G.o.d.

Under the urgent protest of Hood and Polk, Joe Johnston's plans were changed and the promised battle beside the Etowah was never fought. I know not what the issue would have been, personal or national. I know that if the hundred and fifty thousand men marshalled upon that field on that May day had met in deadly strife, the shadows would have fallen on many a Northern and many a Southern home. And yet somehow I can but feel that if that evening's b.l.o.o.d.y promise had been fulfilled and in the gathering twilight at its close our company roll was called to mark the living and the dead, my friend and comrade, Steed, and I, whose humble prayers had broken the silence of the evening air to reach no other ears but ours and G.o.d's, would in His kindly providence have answered, "Here."

TOM HOWARD'S SQUIRREL BEAD.

On May 28, '64, we were on skirmish line near Dallas, Ga. The remainder of the brigade had left the trenches in our rear to reinforce some other point in the line and the pickets were holding the fort alone. A Federal sharpshooter had secured a concealed position at short range and was picking off the men in a way highly satisfactory to himself, perhaps, but decidedly unpleasant to us. We had been on duty all the night before and worn out from loss of sleep. I sat down with my back to a tree as a protection from careless bullets and fell asleep. Will Daniel, in a similar position and for like reasons, was dozing at the next tree twenty feet away. A courier came down the line and waking me asked for the officer in command. I pointed to Will and as the courier laid his hand on Will's shoulder to wake him, a ball crashed through his knee, causing him to scream with pain. A little while before Louis Picquet had received the wound that cost him his leg, and a little later McCurdy of our company, fell with a ball through his head.

Tom Howard had been watching the progress of events and they seemed to him entirely too one-sided. Gripping his rifle more tightly and with the peculiar flash that came to his eyes when excited, he said, "Boys if I can get a squirrel bead on that fellow I can stop his racket." Slipping from tree to tree until he located the picket by the smoke of his gun, he drew his squirrel bead and fired. This time the yell of pain came from the other side, and Tom, with his eyes dancing and his face all aglow, turned to us and said, "Boys, I got him. I heard him holler."

Tom's bead had stopped the racket.

"WHEN THIS CRUEL WAR IS OVER."

Tom was one of the "characters" in the company. Brave and generous, full of life and humor and always ready for duty, he would sometimes grow a little homesick. One day, Ab Mitch.e.l.l, sitting on the edge of the trenches, began to sing, "When this cruel war is over." So far as I know, Ab had never taken first prize at a singing school, but as Tom listened, the plaintive melody of the air and the undertone of sadness in the verses carried him back to his old home in Oglethorpe. Every feature of the old plantation life rose vividly before him. He heard the "watch dog's honest bark bay deep-mouthed welcome" as he drew near home.

He slaked his thirst from the "old oaken bucket that hung in the well."

He heard the lowing cows and saw the playful gambol of his blooded stock cantering across the barn yard. He saw the blooming cotton fields and heard the rustling of the waving corn. But last and best of all, he felt the pressure of tiny arms about his neck, the touch of loving lips upon his own and then his dream was over. With tears in the heart if not in his eye, he thought of the life that lay before him; of the weary months or years that would come and go before these old familiar scenes would gladden his eyes again, and he could stand it no longer. Rising suddenly he seized his old rifle and turning to the singer, he said, "Ab Mitch.e.l.l, if you sing another line of that song, I'll blow your blamed head off." And the concert ended without an encore.

"JIM, TOUCH OFF NO. 1."

During this campaign, Major Bledsoe of Missouri, commanded a battalion of artillery in Cleburne's division. A veteran of two wars, combining in his personality both the Southern and Western types, tall and gaunt, with no trace of Beau Brummellism in his physical or mental make-up, he was as stubborn a fighter as the struggle produced on either side, and yet away from the battlefield he was as gentle and as genial as a woman.

So accurate were his gunners and so effective their fire, that it was said that no Federal battery had ever planted itself in range of his guns, when they were once unlimbered.

As he sat by his battery one day in May, '64, reading a newspaper, a stranger approached him and said, "Major, where are the Yankees?"

Raising his eyes from the paper a moment he turned to one of his gunners and said: "Jim, touch off No. 1," and resumed his reading. "Jim" pulled the lanyard, there was a puff of smoke, the earth trembled from the concussion and the six-pound messenger sped on its mission of death. As it reached its mark, which had been hidden by the undergrowth in front, the "blue coats" were seen scattering in every direction. The stranger was answered.

As I may have no further occasion to refer to Major Bledsoe in these records, an incident or two occurring some months later may not be amiss in this connection. On October 29, '64, near Courtland, Ala., on our trip to Nashville, a grey fox crossed our line of march, pa.s.sing between two of the regiments. The Major was riding by and spurring his horse to full speed, he gave chase, trying at every step to disengage his pistol from the holster for a shot at the animal. I think he failed to secure the "brush." The Reynard tribe must have been numerous in that section, for on reaching our camping place that evening, we found Pat Cleburne and his entire staff chasing another fox through an old field.

After the retreat from Nashville our division was ordered to North Carolina and in the transfer the trip from Selma to Montgomery, Ala., was made by steamer. The boat was old and slow, and the voyage monotonous. To enliven it, the boys, for lack of better game, would try their marksmans.h.i.+p on every buzzard that in silent dignity sat perched on the tall dead pines that lined the river bank. Major Bledsoe was with us, and const.i.tuting himself a "lookout" for the game, he entered into the sport with all the zest and ardor of a boy. He was probably no blood kin to "Jim Bludsoe" of Prairie Belle fame, but under similar conditions I believe that like "Jim" he would, regardless of his own fate, have

"Held her nozzle to the bank, Till the last galoot was ash.o.r.e."

ANOTHER STAMPEDE.

Mention has been made of a panic that occurred on a night march near Green Brier river, Va., in '61. A similar stampede occurred on the night of May 25, '64, near Powder Springs, Ga. We were in reserve and were s.h.i.+fting position to the right. The night was dark and none of us knew the object of the movement or our destination. Tramping along quietly under a moonless sky over a country road darkly shaded by a heavy forest growth, a sudden rumbling was heard, increasing in volume as it approached and then the column in front dimly seen in the starlight, swayed to the right and there was a unanimous movement to get out of the way and to get quickly. One man, thoroughly demoralized, broke through the woods at full speed in the darkness, ran into a tree, that stood in his pathway, and dislocated his knee cap. Most of the men thought the enemy's cavalry were charging down the road upon them and they took to the woods and did not stand upon the order of their going. The rumbling was caused by the hurried tramp of feet as the men left the road. It was simply a causeless stampede and no one knew how it began. It was said that a deer ran across the road in front of the column, but I can not vouch for the correctness of this explanation.

I do not know how it may have been with others, but to the writer the expectation of meeting an unseen enemy in the dark, with no means of ascertaining his numbers or location, was never a pleasant sensation. It would have modified the feeling, perhaps, if I had borne in mind always the advice of a Confederate general to his men to "remember that the other side is as badly scared as you are."

A SUMMER DAY ON THE FIRING LINE.

It was a day in June, but neither a perfect nor a rare June day. For two weeks and more it had rained almost continuously. Every day or two Jabe Poyner, the weather prophet of the company, had said, "Well boys, this is the clearing up shower." And still it rained and rained and rained until Poyner's reputation on this line had gone where the woodbine twineth. In the early morning of the 18th there was another of Jabe's clearing up showers and at its close the boys were lying on the wet ground, a hundred yards in rear of the breastworks, awaiting orders.

They had amused themselves for a time by shooting pebbles at each other, when Bill Byrd's foot was struck and he said, "Boys, don't shoot so hard--that one hurt." Looking down at his foot, he found that another partner had entered the game as it had been hit by a minnie ball from the skirmish line.

The firing had begun at daylight and was growing heavier. At 8 a. m. six companies of the regiment were ordered to the front to reinforce our skirmish line, which was being pressed back. "Over the breastworks, Oglethorpes," sang out Lieut. Daniel, and we went over with a yell.

Advancing and deploying under fire, we reached a position within 250 yards of the Federal line and having no rifle pits, we availed ourselves of such protection as the larger forest trees afforded. Selecting a post oak, I had been there only a little while when the man on my right, belonging to another company, was shot down. The woods were very thick in my front and not relis.h.i.+ng the idea of being killed with such limited opportunity of returning the favor, I s.h.i.+fted my position to the leeward side of a red oak, twenty or thirty feet to the left where the woods were more open and a Federal rifle pit in front was only partially hidden from my view. The diameter of the tree about covered my own and there for twelve hours, in a drizzling rain, I cultivated the acquaintance of that oak more earnestly perhaps than I had ever fostered a personal friends.h.i.+p. For that day at least it was "my own familiar friend in whom I trusted," and if on bidding it adieu, I had met the owner, my prayer to him would have been,

Woodman spare that tree, Mar not its n.o.ble shape, Today it sheltered me From "minnie" and from "grape."

All day long leaden messengers were knocking at the door of my improvised breastwork in search of my long and lank anatomy. It was barked and scarred and torn from the root to twenty feet above my head.

Twice the bark was knocked into my eyes and once a ball striking at the foot of the tree filled them with dirt. On one of these occasions I must have flinched a little as George Harrison, who was cultivating friendly relations with the next tree on my right, turned anxiously and asked if I was shot.

The Federal line as a rule stuck rather closely to their pits and not feeling authorized to waste my ammunition I fired only when there was a blue target in sight. Some of the boys, less careful of their cartridges expended 80 or 90 rounds during the day. John Carroll, ten feet to my left, kept firing when I could see no game, and I said to him, "John, what are you shooting at?" "Well," he said, "they are down that way."

Before the day was ended some of them "down that way" had shot him through the thigh, and the poor fellow died of the wound.

In addition to the incessant infantry fire, which made small lead mines of the friendly oaks, the Federal artillery, not wis.h.i.+ng to be lacking in social attentions, complimented us at short intervals with volleys of grape. These came over us like the whir of a covey of overgrown partridges, but fortunately flew high, causing more nervousness than execution.

Ninety thousand rounds of ammunition were fired on Hardee's line alone that day and our friends on the other side expended probably an equal or larger number. There was no intermission for lunch. Our rations were nearly half a mile away and the Northern exposure of the route towards them somehow dulled our appet.i.tes. There are several incidents that come back very vividly today from that twelve hours' fright in the woods.

A SQUIRREL HUNT UNDER DIFFICULTIES.

One of these incidents furnished an exhibition of coolness under fire and indifference to danger that had no parallel in all my term of service. About midday I heard several shots fired a short distance in my rear. Fearing that some excited soldier might fire wildly and shoot me in the back, I turned to investigate, and saw a member of the regiment standing in an exposed position and coolly and deliberately firing, not at the enemy, but at a squirrel he had discovered in the branches of the tree above our heads. Grape shot were tearing the limbs from their sockets, minies were making music in the air, or striking the oaks with a dull, dull thud, but that soldier, was oblivious to everything save a determination to have fried squirrel for supper. If I knew his name I cannot now recall it, nor do I remember whether the squirrel was included in the casualties of that day.

JIM THOMAS' DILEMMA.

During the afternoon Jim and a Yankee picket had been taking alternate shots at each other and it was the Yankee's time to shoot. Jim was nestling up to the Southern side of his tree and thinking possibly of all the meanness he had ever committed in order to feel as small as possible, when a cannon ball crashed through the tree, cutting off its top and sending it by force of gravity, in the direction of his head. He was in a dilemma. If he remained where he was he was liable to be crushed to death by the falling timber, and if he left his cover the picket would probably kill him. Under ordinary circ.u.mstances Jim may not have been averse to taking a "horn," but in this dilemma he was undecided which horn to take, whether to bear the ills he had or fly to others, that unfortunately he knew too well.

"All things come to him who waits," but in this case there was something coming that Jim didn't care to wait for. Doing perhaps the rapidest thinking of his life he decided if he had to shuffle off this mortal coil, he would do so in a soldierly way, and leaving the protection of his tree he gave his antagonist a fair shot. Fortunately the aim was bad and Jim lived to laugh over his deliverance from a sea of troubles.

A POOR GUN OR A POOR GUNNER.