USA > Florida > Dixie County > Seventy-seven years in Dixie : The boys in gray of 61-65, civil war memoirs of a soldier in the first Florida infantry > Part 4
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THE HUNDRED DAYS BATTLE
to fall back, leaving over half our men killed, wounded or prisoners of the field. Many of our best men were lost there and are now sleeping there under the oaks of North Georgia.
The charge and the loss of our men there was useless, for the order had been countermanded, but the courier by whom the order was sent failed to reach us in time to stop the charge. We buried our dead that night after dark and a sad job it was. I helped to bury one of my closest friends, Lieutenant Cobb of Company D. He was hit near the shoulder in the back as we were retreating towards the works.
There was an old widow lady living in the rear of our breastworks who had a fine lot of bacon, which she asked us to bury to keep the Yankees from getting it. We dug a hole about the size of a grave and put the meat in it with some boards on top of it and then filled in the dirt, placing a head and foot board up to make it look more like a grave.
That night we slipped out and marched ten or twelve miles toward Atlanta, and then began again the work of building breastworks without any rest or sleep.
Thus it went, fight and fall back and throw up breastworks until near Atlanta, when the war department made the sad change from General Johnston to General [John B.] Hood. All the officers and men loved
GEN. JOHN BELL HOOD
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SEVENTY-SEVEN YEARS IN DIXIE
Johnston and none of us believed that had he been kept in command that Sherman would have made his famous raid through Georgia. But as soon as Hood was placed in command he put us to fighting one against five in the open field.
Our first fighting experience under him was the charge we made in the evening at Peach Tree Creek [July 20, 1864] near Atlanta. We kept up this fighting until Sherman got a part of his army around in our rear when we had to fall back from Atlanta to Jonesboro [Georgia]. I well remember the night we left Atlanta and marched all night in heavy marching order, reaching Jonesboro eighteen miles distant just at daylight, and met Sherman's soldiers there at the railroad and went to fighting for its possession. Our division soon got orders to fall back and build breastworks of fence rails, but when the Yankees turned their artillery loose at us the flying rails killed and wounded more than the shells from the Yankees. None of the officers had the faith in Hood that they had in Johnston and none believed that the change should have been made.
I was on duty during the whole hundred days and never lost a day during the whole time.
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CHAP. VIII
THE BATTLE OF JULY 22ND
D URING the siege of Atlanta Generals Pat Cleburne's and Frank Cheatham's corps were sent around to attack Sherman's extreme right. We marched through the streets of Atlanta about dark on the night of the 21st of July [1864] and kept going all that night, marching twenty miles without a minute for rest or sleep. About daylight we were halted and the command was given, "In place, rest." We fell down on the ground, every man with his gun in his hand, and soon fell asleep. I presume we were there about an hour when we
GEN. PATRICK RONAYNE CLEBURNE
GEN. BENJAMIN FRANKLIN CHEATHAM
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SEVENTY-SEVEN YEARS IN DIXIE
were awakened by the command "Attention" and formed in line of battle. Some of the field officers were dashing up and down in front in the lines and the boys, though tired and sleepy, were in good spirits and laughed about going into it so early.
When we moved in line of battle we left the road we had come on from Atlanta and marched through the woods. After about a quarter of a mile we came to a rail fence and the order was to go over it and keep our lines intact. We did the best we could, and, after halting a moment to straighten them, we went on, the orders being given in low tone and with directions to the men not to speak above a whisper. We went through a large field of corn and out on the other side over another rail fence and into the thick woods, still keeping a good line, however. About 150 yards further on we came to a ravine about as wide as we could jump and over that we went, and then the command was passed to double-quick, and as we got to the top of a little hill we went into the Yankees' camp. Some of them were just getting out of bed and we fired a couple of volleys and then they surrendered, some of them in their night clothes. We captured all their tents, guns and wagons, but they were soon reinforced and we were compelled to retreat, but got back to Atlanta with about two hundred prisoners.
A Georgia brigade under General Jackson was on our right, and in crossing the ravine they got mixed up and the General was riding up and down the line hallooing, "Good Lord, where is my brigade?" If it had not been for this we would have made our surprise more complete. Captain Slocumb got his two brass pieces in position down this ravine but was too late to do us any good, and in attempting
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THE BATTLE OF JULY 22ND
to get out, one of his ammunition wagons jammed between two trees and a detail from the First Florida was ordered to help him out, and I was in this detail. The Yankees had a battery in position by this time and were pouring in grape and canister on us and killing horses and men.
We finally got the cannon out all right, but lost four horses and four men by the explosion of a cannon caisson which was set on fire by a shell from the Yankee artillery. It was a hot place about that time, I tell you. It was the 22nd of July and hot as it gets to be, and we made for a shade near a log house which the people had left to get out of the range of the firing. While resting there John Wheeler and Stockwell got a window of the house open and found a big churn of buttermilk and brought it out under the shade to us, and I do not think that milk ever tasted so good to me as that did.
In fighting there the Yankees lost one of their best men, General McPherson.
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CHAP. IX
THE BATTLE OF FRANKLIN, TENNESSEE - THE WORST BATTLE OF THE WAR
W HEN General Hood was trying to get in General Sherman's rear north of Atlanta, our first place to strike the railroad leading from Atlanta to Nashville was at Dalton, which at that time was guarded by a regiment of Negroes commanded by white officers, who, by the way, were all mounted on white horses. We arrived in front of the place early in the morning and our General [William B.] Bate sent in a flag of truce to demand its surrender, which was granted without firing a shot, and the troops were turned over to our brigade to guard. It seems that up to this time the soldiers had all been barefooted, but when they found they had to surrender, new shoes were issued to the entire regiment and when they marched into our lines every man of them had new footwear. Our commander saw what had been done, and under his direction we exchanged shoes with the prisoners, and the next morning our men all had new shoes and they were barefoot again. We guarded them for three days, but what became of them afterwards I never knew. The only trouble about the shoes was that they were all number elevens and were too big for us, but we wore them just the same.
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THE BATTLE OF FRANKLIN, TENNESSEE
About three miles from Dalton the Yankees had a block house built of hewn oak logs, and when our commander sent a flag of truce to demand its surrender the Yankees refused to recognize it and fired on the two officers carrying it, one of them, Captain Miney, having his horse shot under him. They came back to the command and General Bate ordered his two brass thirty-two-pounders turned loose at the house, and every time they fired, the splinters flew. After a few rounds another flag of truce was sent in and this time they surrendered, about eighty of them. The block house was fitted with small loopholes from which they fired, killing and wounding a number of our men. The next morning my messmate and myself went in the house, which was quite dark inside, to see if we could find anything to eat. I was feeling around on the ground and found something cold that felt like a piece of meat, and when I picked it up and took it to the light, I found it to be an ear that had been shot off of one of the soldiers who had been in there. It was a big flat ear but I had no appetite.
From there we marched to Columbia [Tennessee - November 24, 1864] on the Duck River, at which place the Yankees were stationed. General Cheatham was in command and next morning a detail of one hundred men was ordered and marched down the river about three miles. A staff officer put me in command with instruction to build a bridge over which the infantry could cross. His instructions were to build trusses with legs ten feet long, put stringers on these and floor the bridge with rails. We went to work and by night had the trusses ready but the pontoon train which was to put them up in the river had not shown up and it was reported that it had been captured. We kept at work as best
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SEVENTY-SEVEN YEARS IN DIXIE
we could and about one o'clock at night the pontoon train came and went to work setting up the trusses. On the opposite bank was a high bluff and about half my men were taken over and put to work making a cut through that and worked all night without flinching, but the next morning when General Pat Cleburne arrived with his brigade ready to cross, the cut was not finished.
General Cleburne called for the officer in charge and I reported, politely saluting him as he sat there on his big blaze-faced sorrel horse. He wanted to know why the work had not been completed and I told him that I did all possible with the men that I had, that not a man had closed his eyes all night. He was mad about it and abused me shamefully, and threatened to have me arrested and court-martialed for my failure, but I was never arrested. He sent a lot of his men over to the other side and put them to work on the cut and soon had it finished and got his men over along with a few ambulances. General Cheatham soon followed him with his corps, but neither had any artillery or wagons except a few ambulances. The working detail was ordered to get their guns and fall in with their commands and we started to Spring Hill [Tennessee - November 29, 1864], said to be about nineteen miles distant, which we reached about four in the afternoon, but still no sleep. General [Robert E.] Lee's corps was in front of Columbia to hold the Yankees in check until we got around in the rear.
When we arrived in Spring Hill we were thrown in line of battle and ordered to advance against the Yankees, and we soon drove them back to the railroad. When dark came and we were ordered to cease firing, we lay down to sleep in line of battle so near the road that we could hear the Yankee
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THE BATTLE OF FRANKLIN, TENNESSEE
officers giving the commands to their men as they marched along. Some of the officers said afterward that if General Hood had not been drunk the charge would not have been stopped. The Yankees who had slipped by General Lee in the night and gone to Franklin would have been cut off if our advance had gone a dozen yards further, as we GEN. ROBERT E. LEE would have been in possession of the railroad, which General [Nathan Bedford] Forrest with his gallant cavalry had struck the day before and blockaded with several overturned cars.
In the evening the Yankees had several heavy guns playing on us and a number of our men were killed and wounded. During the charge I stepped over a man who had been struck with a cannon ball that had cut off half of his head. I have often wondered who he was and what regiment he belonged to.
The next morning [November 30, 1864] before sunrise we were put on the road to Franklin, said to be about nineteen miles, and this was another forced march. All that day we passed Yankee wagons on the road that had been captured by General Forrest's men, the mules shot or taken and the wagons plundered and left standing in the road. Often when our advance guard would reach the top of a hill they could see the Yankee rear-guard some two or three miles in advance. About four o'clock we arrived within about three
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SEVENTY-SEVEN YEARS IN DIXIE
miles of Franklin and were thrown in line of battle, and our division commander, General [John Calvin] Brown, came down the line and made us a little talk. He said that the Yankees had thrown up breastworks, but they were temporary and we could go right over them, and with this done we would go right on to Nashville and asked us if we would follow him. We gave the rebel yell and said that we would follow him.
Our skirmish line, in command of Captain Saxon, was thrown out and soon drove the Yankee pickets in, and then the main line was ordered forward.
The skirmish line under Captain Saxon drove the Yankees out of their first line of breastworks, but was compelled to retire to the main line, and the muskets began popping in all directions, coming and going hot from both sides until our lines drove them out of their second line of works. When they fell back to their main line our boys began dropping like corn before a hail storm, and we never did succeed in reaching their main line, for about fifty yards in front of it they had cut down a lot of thorny locust bushes and it was impossible in face of the hot fire to get through them.
When it was seen that we could not get through this brush line the order was given to lie down. It was the only hope for us, for we could neither go forward or go back in such a fire and live. This was about seven o'clock in the evening and we laid there under that terrific fire until about eleven when all at once the firing ceased, and then and not until then could we do anything to relieve the sufferings of the wounded, who were all around us and begging for water. Their piteous cries ring in my ears to this day and I often
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1
1
THE BATTLE OF FRANKLIN, TENNESSEE
dream of them. When it was learned that the enemy had slipped out of their breastworks and gone, our thin lines arose but it was thin indeed, for over two-thirds of our men had dropped.
No commands were given that I heard of, and it seemed to be every man for himself. Myself and Lieutenant James Hart got together and began looking for water and something to eat. He had lost his haversack during the fighting in the evening and I had nothing but a piece of cold cornbread in my old dirty haversack, but we ate that without any water, and afterward decided to go down into the town in the search for water and something more to eat. We worked our way through the brush and over the breastworks and as we got down on the inside we stumbled over the dead bodies of the killed there.
It was about half a mile from there down to the business part of town and when we arrived there everything was shut up. Not a ray of light from any residence or business house and we went to four or five houses before we found anyone. At last we got an answer and a long, thin, middle-aged, smooth-shaven man came to the door and asked us what we wanted and who we were. We told him that we were Confederate soldiers from the battlefield and wanted water and something to eat. He asked us where the Yankees were and we told him that they had all gone on the road to Nashville. He then took us through the house into another room where there were three or four ladies and some men, and they were a badly frightened lot, but seemed somewhat relieved when we told them that the Yankees had gone. They gave us water and the ladies soon had us a good supper fixed up for which we were hungry enough to do full justice.
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SEVENTY-SEVEN YEARS IN DIXIE
About that time all the cannons, that General Hood had said to be about three hundred pieces, came up and were put in position near the bridge which the Yankees had just crossed, and commenced firing. It was the most terrific cannonading that I ever heard and made the dishes from which we were eating fairly rattle on the table and nearly frightened the men and women into fits.
Some of our boys who were first out on the road toward Nashville next morning told me that they saw dead Yankees five and six miles out on the road that had been killed by that cannonading that night. In all my four years' service I never heard such a roar as they made that night.
We soon finished our supper or breakfast, for it was past midnight and daylight soon came, and we started back to the battlefield. We asked the men there to go back with us and two of the young men started and went as far as the breastworks, but when they saw the dead men there their hearts failed them and they turned back.
When my comrade and I reached the breastworks we met an officer who told me that I was to go to the Carter house and join the burial detail. When I got there I was placed in charge of about fifty men and the next two days was the most horrible that I ever put in, in my life. Though it has been more than forty years since then, the scenes of that battlefield are as fresh in my mind as though it was yesterday. I think the hardest fighting must have been near the old gin house on Pike Road, for there the bodies were so thick that we could have stepped from one to another, and to think that these were our own boys, who had left all that was near and dear to them to fight for the cause they believed was right.
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THE BATTLE OF FRANKLIN, TENNESSEE
THE CARTER HOUSE The bullet-ridden walls can still be seen today at this historic site in Franklin, Tennessee.
One of the first things I saw that morning was General Pat Cleburne's old sorrel horse astraddle of the Yankee breastworks, just as he had tried to jump over. We went up to him and lying just over inside the breastworks was the body of the General and near his that of General [John] Adams, both surrounded by the bodies of the Yankee and Confederate dead.
About this time a general rode up and, calling us to attention, made a flowery speech praising the fighting we had done and said that no printed history would ever record
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SEVENTY-SEVEN YEARS IN DIXIE
braver men than we had proven ourselves during the terrific fighting of the night before. The tears rolled down his cheeks as he talked, and he turned and rode off. I did not know who he was, and while some of the boys said that they thought that he was a Mississippi general, I have always thought that it was General [Edward C.] Walthall, who did such good fighting on the pike road before Nashville just before our lines were broken by the Yankees getting in behind us.
After completing our work as the burial detail we were ordered to rejoin our commands and we were soon on the road to Murphreesboro. General Bate's division of infantry and General Forrest's division of cavalry were in command. I do not remember the distance, but I do remember that we got there in time to get a good licking [December 5-7, 1864]. We got there about noon and were formed in line of battle, the cavalry being dismounted and put on our right. We had been told that there were only about three hundred Yankees there but there were GEN. NATHAN BEDFORD FORREST nearer ten thousand and they ran right over us. We fired a few volleys but had to give way. In the advance we went through the old cemetery where our boys were buried that had fallen in the first fight there about two years before.
As we fell back through the cedar grove I noticed a number of places where the bones of those buried there in
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THE BATTLE OF FRANKLIN, TENNESSEE
the fight before were sticking up through the ground and it seemed as if they must have been buried very shallow and more rubbish than dirt thrown in the graves.
After we had fallen back and re-formed our lines Generals Forrest and Bate had a big row about some parts of the line giving way too soon, and I thought they would shoot one another, but some other officers got between them and stopped the row.
We took up the march from here to the railroad leading from Murphreesboro to Nashville, striking it about ten miles north of the former place, capturing two block houses on the road to Nashville. We stopped about dark and sat up all night burning rails to keep from freezing, so cold was the weather. The next day we rejoined the remainder of the army and went to digging ditches.
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CHAP. X
THE BATTLE OF NASHVILLE, TENNESSEE
+
A FTER our hard and bloody fight at Franklin, we advanced twenty miles toward Nashville, where we remained nine days in throwing up breastwork and building what was called redoubts. The weather was very cold-we worked both night and day getting our fortifications ready for the fight on the morning of the ninth [of December 1864]. The enemy advanced on us from Nashville, which was four miles distance, and about ten o'clock in the day the Yankees drove our picket line and the fight became general all along the lines. General Walthall's brigade was in line of battle on the pike road leading from Franklin to Nashville, at which place was the hardest fighting done.
We were on a little hill to the left of General Walthall's brigade, which could be seen plainly from our hill, and the first shots were
0 GEN. EDWARD CARY WALTHALL
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THE BATTLE OF NASHVILLE, TENNESSEE
made on the pike road by lines of battle by Negro troops; the Negroes made some four or five different charges on Walthall's brigade and were repulsed in every charge, leaving the field black with dead. There was one charge made by the Negro troops that I noticed in particular. Walthall's men never fired a gun until the Negroes got up within about seventy or eighty yards of their breastworks, then they opened the deadly fire with our boys' bullets almost demolishing the Negro ranks to the ground. I think that it was the last charge they made on General Walthall's brigade-that was the best fighting done that day. Walthall's troops repulsed them five different times. When the Negroes failed to break Walthall's lines, they moved further to our left and broke our lines.
About the time our lines were broken a flanking party had been sent around in our rear, and it was a general fallback by Hood's whole army-a general stampede. We fell back across the pike road; down that road was blue with Yankees, and they were closing in on us and pouring heavy volleys into us. It appeared to me that the air was filled with shells and bullets. A perfect stampede had taken place among the whole army-Yankees and our men all mixed together; some surrendering, some falling dead, others trying to get up the hill to make their escape, the colonels and generals dashing across the hills trying to rally the men with pistols and swords drawn over their retreating men. The generals would get thirty or forty men rallied in a squad and dash off to rally another squad, when the first rallied would break ranks and run for life. Our wagons and ambulances were left with the Yankees to be captured. Myself and messmate ran by where a soldier was trying to cut his mules
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SEVENTY-SEVEN YEARS IN DIXIE
loose from his wagon. He said to us, "Boys, for God's sake, help me get my mules loose from the wagon!"
I said in reply, "Let your damned mules go and try to save yourself."
The Yankees had our guns turned on us. Myself and partner made the top of the hill. As we were running a big shell busted just above our heads, passing so near our heads until the force of it knocked us both to our knees and struck a man just a few steps from us. It must have knocked him ten feet up in the air. When we arrived at the top of the mountain we stopped a moment and looked back down in the valley where our wagons, men and Yankees were all mixed up together. It was a bad sight to see our men waving their white handkerchiefs flying, surrendering to the Yankees.
We must have lost one-half of our wagon train which was left down in that valley. Myself and partner at last got into the road leading to Franklin along with a lot more of our men. It was said to be nineteen miles to Franklin. The wagon train that escaped was ahead of us on the road to Franklin. It cut the red clay up and made it about half-leg deep in mud, and it was very dark and sometimes we would have to stop and pull men out of the mud. We were marching under no orders whatever-every man for himself. A great many of our men completely gave out and some of them would crawl up into the hind-part of the wagons. I thought several times that I would have to fall out for I was completely broken down, but when I would think of being captured I would come to a new life. About the break of day next morning we arrived back into Franklin; about one dozen of us fell down under some old sheds and fell asleep, and about nine o'clock
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THE BATTLE OF NASHVILLE, TENNESSEE
we were waked by some commanding officer. We were then ordered to look up our regiment and when we all got together, about one-half of the regiment were missing. We then marched for Tennessee River where we were to put our pontoon bridge in to cross the army on, when the Yankees sent five gunboats to meet us there to prevent us from putting our bridge across the river. But our intoxicated commander put all the sharpshooters we had left, with their long-range one-thousand-yard guns, along the bank of the river and whipped the gunboats back down the river; then we put our brigade across the river over into Alabama and then marched for Corinth, Mississippi, where we were put under command of General Dick Taylor.
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