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This page is part of The Georgia GenWeb Project a AHGP Project and is hosted by USGENNET |
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Confederate Veteran Misc
Confederate Veteran, Vol. IV, No. 3, Nashville, Tenn., March, 1896. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- THE INDIAN TERRITORY 1861 to 1865 Thomas F. Anderson, Mills, La. I have concluded to contribute an account of the part taken by our Southern Indians in the war between the States, but have to depend on memory. Strange to say, my recollection of what took place under my observation in the war with Mexico in 1845 and '47, is more vivid than that of our last war. But few dates are remembered. Being more intimately connected with the Cherokees, what I have to say will principally concern them. We must glance back and refer to the causes which led to a division in that tribe into two parties, between whom the feeling ran as high as that between the Democratic Party South, and the Abolition Party North, previous to and at the outbreak of our Civil War. At the time of the discovery of America, the Cherokees, then a powerful tribe, occupied much of Georgia. parts of Tennessee, North and South Carolina and a small strip of Southern Virginia. They gradually withdrew from Virginia, moving South, and during Gen. Jackson's presidency, resided principally in Georgia. As white settlers occupied that State, the usual crowding out process began, and laws were passed bearing hard and injuriously upon the Cherokees. Their principal chief was John Ross, a man of liberal education, crafty and unreliable. To secure peace and quiet propositions, from the United States had been made to purchase their lands east of the Mississippi River and set apart to them a reservation west of the State of Arkansas. These propositions were bitterly opposed by Mr. Ross and his party, numerically the strongest, but composed principally of full bloods. On the other hand, Major Ridge, founder of the party subsequently named after him and composed of half breeds and slave owners, among whom was Elias Boudinot, one of the ablest and most cultured of his people, saw that eventually his people would have to sell or be driven off, and with his followers concluded a Treaty with the United States, disposing of all their lands east, and agreeing to take a reservation west of the Mississippi. The Treaty was ratified by the United States Senate, and the removal of the Cherokees began in 1828. Previous to this, however, a small body of Cherokees, afterwards known as Old Settlers, had removed and settled in western Arkansas. John Ross, still the principal chief, now began oppressing the Ridge party, and had their principal men, such as the Ridges, Boudinot, Jim Starr, the Adairs and others murdered. Stand Watie, now the leader of the Ridge party, had attempts made upon him, but they all failed. The last attempt was made by a noted bully named Foreman, who was himself laid out by Watie. In 1860 there were unusual local disturbances. A secret organization, known as the Ketowah Society, had long existed among the followers of John Ross. The object of this organization was destruction to half breeds and white men living in the nation. The badge of membership in this association was two pins crossing one another and fastened to the lapel of the coat, vest or hunting shirt. Hence they received the name and were known as Pins. We captured all their papers during the war. I have them and the Kansas Jayhawkers to thank for the burning of my house and the destruction of all else that I possessed. Ia May, 1861, Gen. Albert Pike came as Commissioner from the Confederate States Government authorized to make treaties with the Southern Indians. At first Chief Ross refused and insisted on his nation remaining neutral, and would not allow enlistment of Cherokee troops into the Confederate service. Stand Watie had, however, in a quiet way enlisted a regiment in readiness to join the Confederates. John Ross was evidently holding off for further development. This was before the battle of Springfield, on Wilson's Creek, as the Yankees called it. Success crowning our arms there, Ross hastened to treat with Gen. Pike and agreed to put in the Confederate service a regiment to be armed and equipped by the Confederacy, and he did so. In making that treaty he would allow none of the leaders of the Ridge party to take part in it. Previous to this Gen. Ben McCulloch authorized Capt. John Miller and myself to raise an independent company to serve for three months. We were known as the Dixie Rangers and we were to occupy the neutral land in part of the Territory and Southern Kansas. In that company served the afterwards noted William Quantrell, about whom I will, at some future time, take occasion to say something, to correct stories about this death, etc. I will only say here that, when you knew Quantrell, you knew a kind-hearted man, an intrepid soldier and a gentleman of whose friendship I was, and am, proud. The Third Louisiana Regiment came up to us. Many of us saw that Regiment under fire at Springfield and Pea Ridge, where it made its mark as well as at other points, wherever it served, in fact. When that Regiment left us after the Pea Ridge fight, our Indians were distressed, and to the end of the war they never ceased to regret the separation from them of the Third Louisiana. At the expiration of their three months' term of service the Dixie Rangers were disbanded, and nearly all, myself included, joined Company K., First Cherokee Regiment. Capt. Thompson Mayes, a brother of the late principal Chief Joel B. Mayes. Capt. Mayes was a man of superior education and a fine officer. This was Colonel Watie's pet company. There was but the one company in the First Cherokee Regiment, composed of and officered by Indians. In the other companies, whites and Indians were mixed as well among the officers as in the ranks, and it worked well and smoothly. In the Choctaw regiments some companies were either all whites or all Indians, which caused more or less friction and jarring. But the plan had been adopted by Col. D. N. Cooper and could not well be changed. Many of Col. Watie's Regiment took part in the battle of Springfield, but went there with his permission as individuals and not as an organized body. A number of Missourians came to us and took part in the fight. Some came unarmed and others armed with their shotguns and rifles. Among them was an old, lean and lank Baptist preacher with a Flintlock rifle about seven feet long. He would kneel on one knee, take deliberate aim, and say: "May the Lord have mercy on that poor critter's soul," and pull the trigger. Then he would get up, reload, get down on one knee again and repeat his prayer, fire. I stood and looked at him fire five or six times, and I believe he made every bullet count. Very little was done between that fight and the battle of Pea Ridge, except a fight that took place in December, 1861, between our Cherokees and the forces of Opothleoholo, the leader of the so-called Loyal Creeks, Seminoles, Wichitas, Kickapoos and Delawares. The weather was extremely cold. We found Opothleoholo occupying a strong position in the mountains near Chustenola. We commenced driving them from the start, captured their baggage and papers, and followed them for three days up into Kansas to the big bend of Arkansas River. The Pin Regiment came up the second day, but took no part in the fight. Many of the enemy were killed. Here and there we would strike bunches of their squaws huddled together. These we sent back to our camp and fed. In their flight they had thrown away their infants, which were frozen stiff. Altogether it was a sickening sight. After this, nothing worth noting took place until we were ordered to Pea Ridge, where the Cherokees distinguished themselves capturing a battery. Here one of the Yankee artillerymen was lying stretched out, face down, between two of the pieces apparently dead. One of our full blood Cherokees took out his knife, got his fingers in the Yankees hair and cut out and jerked off a scalp about the size of a dollar. Thus resurrected, Mr. Yank got him on his legs in a hurry, and "he ran like a quarter horse," not a gun was fired after him, but a yell went up: "Go it, Yank, we have a lock of your hair." This scalping business, however, brought on more or less correspondence between opposing commandery, and our Indians were strictly ordered to keep their fingers out of white men's hair, leaving it optional with them to take such mementoes from other Indians or let it alone. At this time we were in the Department of Arkansas, first under Gen. Holmes and next under Gen. Hindman. We were then put into a department of our own, called the Indian Department, and under Gen. Steele. Colonels Cooper and Watie were made Brigadier-Generals. Gen. Watie had the command of the First Indian Brigade, consisting of the First and Second Cherokee Regiments, commanded respectively by Colonels J. M. Bell and W. P. Adair, Scales' Battalion, Major J. A. Scales and Quantrell's Battalion, the latter the most of the time on detailed service in Missouri and Kansas. The Second Indian Brigade, Gen. Cooper, was composed of two Choctaw regiments and the Chickasaw Battalion. The Third Brigade consisted of First Creek Regiment, Col. D. N. McIntosh, and the Second Creek Col. Chilly McIntosh. and the Seminole Regiment Col. John Juniper, and commanded by Brig. Gen. Sam Checoti. In the summer of 1862, I was sent out west to enlist for the Confederacy, and succeeded in raising one battalion of Osages, Major Broke Arm, one large company of Caddoes and Arrapahoes, Capt. George Washington, and one company of Comanches, Capt. Esopah or Esc Habbe, their Chief. All of these reported to Gen. Watie and were of good service to us, as they rambled between Kansas and the Texas Panhandle and prevented any invasion from Kansas, which otherwise would undoubtedly have taken place. After the Pea Ridge fight, Gen. Price's Missourians and the Third Louisiana Regiment were ordered east of the Mississippi River, and we were left to ourselves, all Indians, except Wills' Battalion and a Texas infantry regiment, which were stationed at our depot of supplies and saw no fighting. In the summer of 1862, Chief Ross and the Pin Regiment deserted to the Yankees. From that on we saw no rest, and hardly a week passed but what bushwhacking engagements between us and the Northern Indians and Yankees took place. Early in the spring of 1863 the military authorities in Kansas conceived the idea of returning the Northern refugee Cherokees to their homes in time to plant a crop. They had furnished them with horses, seeds and necessary agricultural implements, and they came escorted by Gen. Blount, commanding Kansas troops, and Col. Phillips, commanding the old Pin Regiment. But Gen. Watie did not propose to let them alone. We routed them from settlement to settlement and they, together with Col. Phillips' Regiment, had to shut themselves up in Fort Gibson. We were quite beholden to the Yankees for the supplies thus furnished by them, which mostly fell into our hands. Gen. S. B. Maxey now took command of the Department. He was the Indians idol. His free and easy manner suited them exactly; besides, he was a fighter and kept us moving. When Red River Banks started on his expedition, which terminated at Mansfield, Federal Gen. Steele was to move out from Little Pock, and Gen Thayer from Fort Smith, to join Banks in Texas. The greater part of our Indians were waiting for Thayer to come out from Fort Smith, but he concluded best not to show himself and he acted wisely, for our boys were spoiling for a fight. Part of the Indians commanded by Gen. Maxey met Steele at Poison Springs, captured his train, and sent two Negro regiments to the happy hunting grounds. We followed Steele on his retreat to Saline River, where we fought in mud and water, belly deep to our horses, and felt very much relieved when Parsons' Brigade of Missourians, who had force-marched it from Mansfield' came up in double quick, and one of them called out: "Stand aside, you critter companies, and let us at them." Well, we critter companies stood aside, and Parsons' men went at them sure enough. I must pass over numerous small engagements we had with the Northern Indians. They gave us the most trouble. Had we not had them to fight, we would have had a comparatively easy time of it. But they knew the country as well as we did and took advantage of that knowledge. Their losses, however exceeded ours. Among our captures from the enemy, I will mention one steamboat loaded with dry-goods, near Webber's Falls, for Fort Gibson, and a train of about 200 wagons loaded principally with ready made clothing, on Cabin Creek, Cherokee Nation. The last winter of the war, Gen. Maxey was ordered to Texas, Gen. Cooper took command of the Indian Department, and Gen. Watie of the Indian Division. This was the first time that we saw some rest for a little over a month, when we had gone into winter quarters near Red River in Choctaw Nation. About a year previous to this, messengers had been sent to the Western and Northwestern Indians to meet us in Council at Walnut Springs. The object of this council was, first, to make peace between the different tribes. The next program was for these tribes, thus united, to invade Kansas from the north and west, whilst we would meet them from the south, and leave but a greasy spot of Kansas. We had, during that winter, prepared a number of pack saddles, as we would not be encumbered with a train. Unfortunately, Gen. Lee's surrender took place but a short time before the meeting of this Council. Hence, we thought best to confine the proceedings to peace-making between the Indians, and I have heard of no war between them from then until now. Tribes from Idaho, Dakota and Montana were present. It was, perhaps, the largest lndian Council that ever met. The disbanding of the Indian troops took place in April, 1865. The Choctaws, Chickasaws, Creeks and Seminoles returned to their respective homes, which had not been desolated. With tine' Southern Cherokees it was different. Their houses had been burned, their stock stolen and driven into Kansas. Many of them who, at the outbreak of the war, counted their stock of horses and cattle by the thousands, could barely raise a pony to go home on. Their country was now in possession of the Federals and Pins, and they were therefore compelled to remain as refuges in the Choctaw Nation and keep up a quasi military organization until after the meeting of the United States Commissioners and Southern Tribes of Indians at Fort Smith, in June, 1865, when peace was declared. I have thus endeavored to give a mere outline of the campaign in the Indian Territory. But I cannot conclude this hasty and incomplete sketch without words of praise to our Indian allies, especially the Cherokees, under their able leader, Stand Watie, and our Seminoles, under that good man and strict disciplinarian, Col. John Juniper. Confederate Veteran, Vol. IV, No. 4, Nashville, Tenn., April, 1896. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- HEROINES OF THE SOUTH B. L. Ridley, Murfreesboro, Tenn. General Stephen D. Lee, who was most loyal to the Stars and Bars, when asked by a Federal officer, after his surrender at Vicksburg, why the Southern people did not give up, is reported to have replied: "Because the women of the South would never agree to it." General A. P. Stewart speaks of them as a race unsurpassed for heroism, for deeds of charity and loving kindness, for self-sacrificing and patriotic devotion to the cause of their country, for unswerving constancy and perseverance in what they knew to be right, and the uncomplaining fortitude with which they accepted defeat and all its adverse consequences." To show the blood that was in them, from wealth they met the conditions that confronted them and submitted to sacrifices cheerfully, going to the washtub, the spindle and the loom to support the widowed mothers and crippled fathers and kindred, until our Southland blossoms with a heroine in nearly every home. I have read of the heroines in Napoleon s Court, "Families of Cleopatra's enchantresses who charm posterity, who had but to smile at history to obtain history's smile in return;" Mesdames Tallien, De Stael, Recamier, Charlotte Corday, of the deeds of Joan d'Arc, of Mollie Pitcher and Deborah Sampson of our Revolution, and Florence Nightingale of England, but when I draw the line of comparison I can point to women whose names and fame "in the War between the States" will surpass them in acts and deeds that will only die with the echo of time. The battle of Nashville gave us a heroine whose name General Hood placed on the roll of honor, "Miss Mary Bradford," now Mrs. John Johns. When Thomas' Army was pouring the musketry into us and Hood's Army was in full retreat, she rushed out in the thickest of the storm cloud and begged the soldiers to stop and fight. The famous raid of General Streight with two thousand men, near Rome, Ga., resulting in his capture through the intrepidity of a Miss Emma Sanson, was an instance of female prowess long to be remembered. Amidst the flying bullets, thrilled with patriotism, she jumped on behind Gen. Forrest and piloted him across the Black Warrior. The Legislature of Alabama granted her land, and the people lauded her to the skies. When Hood's Army, on the Nashville campaign, passed Gadsden, this young lady stood on her porch and the army went wild with cheers in her honor. Another heroine in General Morgan's cavalry tramp, on the line of Kentucky and Tennessee, grew to be terror in her section. She was as expert in horsemanship as a Cossack, dressed in men's clothes and handled a gun with the skill of a cracksman. She bore the name of "Sue Munday," had many encounters and her career was exceedingly romantic. The old scouts in the West will remember two other heroines through whose aid we were often saved from attack and told when and where to strike. Miss Kate Patterson, now Mrs. Kyle, of Lavergne, Tenn., and Miss Robbie Woodruff, who lived ten miles from Nashville. They would go into Nashville, get what information was needed and place it in a designated tree, stump or log to be conveyed to us by our secret scouts. I have often wondered if the diagram of works around Nashville found on the person of Sam Davis was not gotten through them, notwithstanding the impression received that it was stolen from Gen. Dodge's table by a Negro boy. Miss Woodruff thrilled the scouts by her many perilous achievements. But I have a heroine of the mountains who developed in war times, yet on account of her obscure habitation and the bitter heart burnings existing between the two factions, so nearly divided in her section, that history has not yet given her name merited fame. I got her record from the Rev. J. H. Nichols, who lived in her section of Putnam County, three miles from Cookeville, Tenn. Her name was Miss Marina Gunter, now Mrs. Joe Harris. Her father, Larkin Gunter, was a Southern man, and some bushwhackers, claiming to belong to the Federal Army, resolved to kill him. One night three of them, Maxwell, Miller and Patton, visited his home and told him, in the presence of his family, that his time had come to die. They took him out from the house and in a short time this maiden of seventeen heard the licks and her old father's groans, when she rushed to the wood-pile, got an axe and hurriedly approached the scene. The night was dark and drizzly, and the men were standing by a log, on which they had placed her father and he was pleading for his life. She killed two with the axe and broke the third one's arm. He got away at lightning speed, but afterwards died from the wound. She lifted up her father and helped him home. Soon she sought and obtained protection from the Federal General at Nashville. She said afterwards, that upon hearing her father's groans she grew frantic and does not know, to this good day, how she managed it, nor did she know anything until she had cleaned out the platter. This is the greatest achievement of female heroism of its kind that has ever been recorded, and places Miss Gunter on the pinnacle of glory that belongs not alone to patriotism, but to the grandeur of filial affection "the tie that stretches from the cradle to the grave, spans the Heavens and is riveted through eternity to the throne of God on high." They talk about Sheridan's ride but let me tell of one that strips it of its grandeur the famous run of Miss Antoinette Polk, displaying a heroism worthy of imperishable record. She was on the Hampshire Turnpike, a few miles from Columbia, Tenn., when some one informed her of the Federals contemplated visit to her father's home on the Mt. Pleasant Pike five miles across—said pikes forming an obtuse angle from Columbia. She knew that some soldier friends at her father's would be captured unless they had notice, and in order to inform them, she had to go across the angle that was barricaded many times with high rail and rock fences. There was no more superb equestrienne in the valley of the Tennessee and she was of magnificent physique. She had a thoroughbred horse trained to her bidding. The young lady started, leaping the fences like a reindeer, and came out on the pike just in front of the troopers, four miles from home. They took after her, but her foaming steed was so fleet of foot, that she got away from them in the twinkling of an eye, and saved her friends from capture. [Supplemental to the above the following is furnished by a lady who has known the Countess since their girlhood.] Antoinette Wayne Van Leer Polk is the full name of this brave girl, given in honor of her maternal grandfather, who was a nephew of Major General Anthony Wayne, of Revolutionary fame, and who was Commander-in-Chief of the army at the time of his death, and whose father was a son of a brave officer in the French and Indian war, while his direct ancestor was a distinguished soldier in the Battle of the Boyne, so that on both sides she was of heroic blood. She was not fully grown when she took this famous ride. After the war she went abroad with her father and mother and finished her education in Europe. The health of her father, Andrew Jackson Polk, having failed when in the Confederate Army, he grew worse and died in Switzerland. Miss Polk had a most brilliant young ladyhood abroad, principally in Rome, where she was beloved by the Princess Margarite, and universally admired. She married a distinguished French soldier of the old regime, the Marquis de Charette de la Contrie, like herself, of heroic stock, and has her home in France. She has one son, a youth of great promise. I recollect another heroine, a Lieut. Buford of an Arkansas regiment. She stepped and walked the personification of a soldier boy; had won her spurs on the battlefield at Bull Run, Fort Donelson, and Shiloh, and was promoted for gallantry. One evening she came to General Stewart's headquarters, at Tyner's Station, with an order from Maj. Kinloch Falconer to report for duty as scout, but upon his finding that "he" was a woman, she was sent back and the order revoked. She has written a book. In point of devotion and of nursing our soldiers in distress, the sick, the wounded, the women of the South were all "Florence Nightingales." It would be invidious to discriminate, but I will mention some of the other noteworthy deeds. I have another heroine—bless her sweet soul. I have forgotten her name. One day General Morgan sent a squad of us on a scout and we were pursued by Col. Funkerhauser's Regiment in Denny's Bend of Cumberland River, near Rome, Tenn. My heroine, a little girl of fourteen, directed us to Bradley Island for safety-a place of some sixty acres in cultivation, but on the river side it was encircled by a sandbar. with drift wood lodged on an occasional stubby sycamore. This sweet, animated little girl brought us a "square" meal, and watched for our safety like a hawk during the day. Thinking it was a foraging expedition, and that they were gone, we ventured to leave late in the afternoon, but ran into them and a running fire ensued. After eluding pursuit, we concluded to go back. In a short time a company of Federals appeared on the island, evidently having tracked our horses. We left the horses behind the driftwood, without hitching, and took shelter under a big fallen tree. The troopers were in ten steps of us at times. We could hear them distinctly, and one fellow said: "If we catch 'em boys, this is a good place to hang'em." Another said, "Let's go down in the driftwood on the sandbar and bag 'em." Hearts thumped and legs trembled! We thought we were gone. One of our squad said, "Let's give up," but the rest of us were too badly scared to reply. A frightened rabbit stopped near us, panting, watching and trembling with fear, producing a mimetic effect on our feelings. Ah, if a painter could have pictured that scene, and if a pen could describe that occasions We lay there until nightfall. They did not happen to see our horses and, through a kind Providence, we escaped. Our heroine came to us after nightfall, signaled and we answered. She was so happy over our escape; told us that she saw them leave and that they had no prisoners. She mounted her horse, followed on behind them to the tollgate, two miles away. and learned that they had returned to Lebanon, after which she returned to us, brought our supper and put us on a safe road. Such heroines the Southern soldiers met with often in the disputed territory of contending armies. They evidenced a devotion to country that only might and not right could subdue. There was another class more nearly comporting with female character; sock knitters, clothes makers, needle pliers, God servers, reveling in sentiment in touch with the times. From wealth they drank the dregs of poverty's cup. until now, for over thirty years, by frugality and dint of perseverance, they have been instrumental in our Southland's blessed resurrection. Female clerks, teachers, Graph, phone and type machine operators, and other callings. From authoresses to cooks they attest a courage and praiseworthiness that exceeds bellicose valor. To the old stranded Southern craft they have been mariners that make the world pause to see us moving again amid the councils of our common country, resuscitated, regenerated and disenthralled. Posterity will do them justice, historians, poets and dramatists will chronicle their praises. Charlotte Corday's epitaph was "Greater than Brutus," but that of the Southern women will be, "Greater than Jackson, the Johnstons or Lee, greater than Jefferson Davis, greater than any other heroines of time." To impress more forcibly my idea of our women, I have a friend who has risen as a poet—Albert Sidney Morton, St. Paul, Minnesota, who has written, to go with this tribute, a poem on "The Women of the South." It is beautiful, thrilling and true. I give it through the VETERAN to the public, to be handed down to posterity. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- THE WOMEN OF THE SOUTH. Albert Sidney Morton, St. Paul, Minn. Not Homer dreamt, nor Milton sung Through his heroic verse, Nor Prentiss did with wondrous tongue, In silver tones, rehearse The grandest theme that ever yet Moved brush. or tongue, or pen— A theme in radiant glory set To stir the souls of men— THE WOMEN OF THE SOUTH. Of nascent charms that thrall the gaze, Of love's most pleasing pain, Ten thousand tuneful. lyric lays Have sung and sung again; But I would sing of souls, of hearts Within those forms of clay, Of lives whose lustre yet imparts Fresh radiance to our day— THE WOMEN OF THE SOUTH. When battle's fierce and lurid glare Lit up our shady glens; When slaughter, agony, despair, Or Northern prison pens, Were portion of the sturdy son Of Southern mother true, Who prayed the battle might be won Of grey against the blue?— THE WOMEN OF THE SOUTH. Our lads were true, our lads were brave, Nor feared the foemen's steel, And thousands in a bloody grave Did true devotion seal; But brightest star upon our shield , Undimmed without a stain. Is she who still refused to yield Refused, alas, in vain— THE WOMAN OF THE SOUTH. We had no choice but to fight, While she was left to grieve; We battled for the truth and right Our freedom to achieve— Assured death we could embrace— But there is not yet born The Southern man who dares to face The silent withering scorn OF WOMEN OF THE SOUTH. Who bade us go with smiling tears? Who scorned the renegade? Who, silencing their trembling fears, Watched, cheered, then wept and prayed? Who nursed our wounds with tender care, And then. when all was lost, Who lifted us from our despair And counted not the cost? THE WOMEN OF THE SOUTH. Then glory to the Lord of Hosts,— Yes, glory to the Lord, To Father, Son and Holy Ghost And glory to His Word; To us is giv'n creation's prize— The masterpiece of Him Who made the earth, the stars, the skies, The war cloud's golden rim:— THE WOMEN OF THE SOUTH.
Confederate Veteran, Vol. IV, No. 8, Nashville, Tenn., August, 1896. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- UNITED SONS, CONFEDERATE VETERANS Unknown An Account of the Organization, Aims and Purposes of This Association. List of Officers, Etc. The formation at Richmond last week of the Federation to be known as the United Sons of Confederate Veterans should receive the commendation and support of all true Southerners. Its aims, objects and purposes are not to create or foster in any manner, any feeling against the North, but to hand down to posterity the "story of the glory of the men who wore the gray." Knowing that "in union there is strength," the sons of those who made the South famous have come together for the systematic and united work of preserving from oblivion the true history of the South. That this step meets with the hearty approval of the "men who wore the gray" is shown by the following resolution, which was adopted at the Convention of the United Confederate Veterans at Richmond, at their regular session. "Resolved, That this session provide at once for the formation of Sons of Confederate Veterans into a separate national organization. This is urgent from the manifold fact that our ranks are thinning daily, and our loved representatives should step in now and arrange to take charge of Southern history, our relics, mementos and monuments, and stimulate the erection of other monuments to our heroes ere 'taps' are sounded for the last of their fathers." But before this resolution was adopted the Sons had taken matters in their own hands, and on the evening of June 30th, met at the Auditorium at Richmond, and arranged for the organization of a Federation themselves. At this meeting a committee was appointed to draft a Constitution for the new Association. but they were unable to prepare the same that evening, and the session adjourned at 11 o'clock, to meet the next day. On July 1st the delegates from the Camp of Sons of Confederate Veterans from the various Southern States, who had been called by the P. E. Lee Camp of Richmond, to assemble for the purpose of forming this Association, adopted a Constitution similar in every respect to the Constitution governing the United Confederate Veterans, and permanently organized the United Sons of Confederate Veterans. The preamble of this Constitution reads: "To encourage the preservation of history, perpetuate the hallowed memories of brave men, to assist in the observance of Memorial Day, to aid and support all Confederate Veterans, widows and orphans. and to perpetuate the record of the services of every Southern Soldier, these are our common aims. These objects we believe will both promote a purer and better private life, and enhance our desire to maintain the "national honor, union and independence of our common country. The organization of this Association is composed of departments, divisions, brigades and Camps. The Federation has an Executive Head and three Departments, entitled Army of Northern Virginia Department, consisting of the States of North and South Carolina, Maryland, Virginia and Kentucky. The Army of Tennessee Department, consisting of the States of Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee, Mississippi, Louisiana and Florida. The Trans-Mississippi Department, consisting of the States and Territories west of the Mississippi excepting Louisiana. Each State constitutes a division and is commanded by a Major General; the Departments are commanded by a Lieutenant General. The States are furthermore divided into brigades which also have their commanders. In this way the work is thoroughly systematized and is so arranged that the most excellent results can be readily obtained. The officers elected at this first Convention of the United Sons of Confederate Veterans were as follows: Mr. J. E. B. Stuart, of Richmond, General Commanding; Mr. Robert A. Smyth, of Charleston, Lieutenant General in command of the Department of Northern Virginia; Mr. John L. Hardeman, of Macon, Ga., Lieutenant General in command of the Department of Tennessee. The election of the Lieutenant General of the Trans-Mississippi Department was deferred until the organization of State Divisions in that Department; Mr. R. H. Pinckney, of Charleston, Quartermaster General; Mr. George B. Williamson, of Columbia, Tenn., Inspector General; Dr. Stuart McGuire, of Richmond, Surgeon General; Mr. E. P. McKissick, of Ashville, N. C., Commissary General; Bishop T. F. Gailor, of Tennessee, Grand Chaplain; Mr. T. R. K. Cobb, of Atlanta, Ga., Judge Advocate General. The officers of this new Association are exerting every effort to thoroughly organize and build up the same, and to this end their efforts will be directed to the formations of Camps of Sons in every city and town of the South. According to the Constitution the Convention of the United Sons of Confederate Veterans is held at the same time and place as the United Confederate Veterans, so that the next convention will meet at Nashville, Tenn. The General Commanding has the power to appoint a staff to aid him in his work, as have also the Lieutenant Generals and the Commanders of Divisions. General J. E. B. Stuart has appointed Mr. Edwin P. Cox, of Richmond, Va., his Adjutant General and Chief of Staff. The remainder of his staff has not yet been appointed. The Lieutenant Generals have not as Yet appointed their staff.
Confederate Veteran, Vol. IV, No. 9, Nashville, Tenn., September, 1896. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- JACKSON'S GUIDE WHEN SHOT David J. Kyle David J. Kyle, of Virginia, furnishes the VETERAN an account of the wounding of Stonewall Jackson. On May 2, 1863, I was in the vicinity of old Vedearsville near the house of Mrs. Sidney Bledsoe, when a little before 3 o'clock I was directed by Gen. W. H. F. Lee to carry a dispatch to Gen. J. E. B. Stuart. He told me not to go down the turnpike, as the Yankees were reported between there and the Rapidan River; so I went through the fields and woods and came out at Old Salem Church (in Orange County). As I left them at the Culpeper plank road, one of Hill's men said to me: "Come, buddy, go this way and we will show you the Yankees; there ain't any on that road." After this I found Gen. J. E. B. Stuart near Mr. Ned Easley's, and, close by, a battery of artillery in position. I delivered the papers to him in person. He asked me what time I left General Lee, and when I told him, he said: "You have been a long time coming. "I told him then of my roundabout way and the trouble of not being able to pass the Infantry on Brock's road. He replied, "That accounts for it," and asked me if I knew the country about there. Thomas Chancellor, who happened to be standing near, said: "He knows every hog-path." General Stuart then asked me if my horse was all right for another ride. I assented, and he said, "I want you to carry a dispatch to General Jackson." And after a few minutes he delivered to me a large envelope, sealed, and said: "You will find General Jackson on the plank road somewhere between the Brock road and the line of battle. Keep behind the firing and don't let them capture you," and added, "If General Jackson wants you for a guide, stay with him." Before I left General Stuart the fight had commenced; it was after 6 o'clock. I went towards Chancellorsville on the Easley road, then through the woods to the Lacy Mill; then I bore to my Left, coming out on the turnpike in sight of Mr. James Talley's house, and on to the junction of the pike and plank road. Here I met some officers, who told me that General Jackson was certainly to the front, where the fighting was then going on. Putting spurs to my horse, I rode to the old Dowdall Tavern, where the Rev. Melzil Chancellor lived at that time. There I met Mr. Chancellor, who had just come back from General Jackson, having served him as a guide, and he directed me to him. I urged my horse on and was soon abreast with the General. I saluted, and said, "General Jackson, I have a dispatch for you from General Stuart," handing the envelope to him. He halted his horse, read the papers quickly, turned to me, and said, "Do you know all of this country?" I answered that I did, and he said, "Keep along with me." We were then between Powell's old field and the schoolhouse. There were many dead horses in the road and by it. I learned that it was where the Eighth Pennsylvania Cavalry charged. From here General Jackson moved on until he got opposite the schoolhouse. There he halted for a few minutes and had a conversation with some officers. Then he started on, two of the officers riding by him. After leaving the schoolhouse and going about two hundred yards in the curved road, we came up on a line of Infantry standing obliquely across the road. General Jackson stopped a few minutes in conversation with the officers of this Command, then passed on through its front, going nearly a hundred yards further, and just behind a battery which was supported by a very thin line. As we passed I asked whose command it was and they said it was Field's Brigade. I asked what Regiment, and one man said his was the Fifty-fifth Virginia, and another said his was the Twenty-second Virginia Battalion. We bore obliquely to the left and went to the left of the Battery, where there was an open space at the fork of the roads—to Bullock's and the Old Mountain roads—which intersected the plank and turn pike roads here. General Jackson asked for me. I went forward and he asked me where those roads led to. I told him that the left-hand one led to the Bullock farm behind Chancellorsville, and the other ran somewhat parallel with the plank road and came out on it a half mile below, towards Chancellorsville. He told me if I knew it to lead the way, which I did for about two hundred yards, when he rode abreast of me and kept so until we halted. We went down the Old Mountain road some four hundred yards, when we came in hearing of the Federals, I suppose some two or three hundred yards distant. It seemed that the officers were trying to form their men in line. We stayed there a few minutes, when the General turned his horse around and started back the road we had come, a little in advance of me. When we were some fifty or seventy-five yards from where General Jackson turned back, four or five officers rode in between my horse and the General's. We were about half way back, and nearly opposite the Van Wert house when General Jackson turned his horse's head towards the south, from a westerly course, and, facing the front of our own line of battle, he started to leave the Old Mountain road. Just as he was crossing the road there was a single shot fired to the right of the Van Wert house in our dine. In an instant it was taken up, and nearer there were five or six shots, like a platoon, and then suddenly a large volley, as if from a Regiment, was fired. General Jackson's horse wheeled to the right and started to run obliquely across the Old Mountain road, passing under the limb of an oak tree that extended across the road, which came near pulling him off his horse. The horse went to the opposite side of the road, some twenty-five yards from where the General was wounded, before he got control of him. He turned the horse and came back ten or twelve yards before he was taken down by some officers. After getting General Jackson off his horse, he was taken by four men and carried to the plank and pike road running here side by side, where he was laid down with his head resting on some officer's left leg as he knelt on his right knee— I think it was Gen. A. P. Hill—until a litter was brought from the Twenty-second (Va.) Battalion. It was unfolded and Genera] Jackson put on it. Four men carried him across the pike and plank roads for the road that led to Stoney Ford. When in about twenty-five yards of that road the front left hand litter bearer, J. J. Johnson, Company H, Twenty-second Virginia Battalion, was struck in the left arm by a piece of shell from a Federal battery, which caused him to let loose the litter, causing General Jackson a very hard fall. The other three litter bearers ran to the cover of the woods on the south side of the plank road, but soon rallied and came back, and with the assistance of an officer, not very high in rank, wearing bars, they lifted General Jackson up and laid him on the litter just over the embankment of the road where it had been carried by one of the bearers in his flight. They raised the litter up on their shoulders with General Jackson on it, and started to the woods on the Stoney Ford road, and carried him back some distance before they met an ambulance. After getting him into the ambulance they took the Hazel Grove road to the plank road that comes out at the corner of the Dowdall field, and up the plank road to the old Dowdall house, where Rev. M. S. Chancellor supplied the doctors with some spirits for General Jackson. They halted there a very few minutes, then drove on up the pike to the Wilderness Old Tavern, where Mr. W. M. Simms lived at the time. They drove out on the right of the pike in the field to a hospital tent, where they took General Jackson out of the ambulance and carried him into the tent, which was the last I ever saw of him. Confederate Veteran, Vol. V, No. 1, Nashville, Tenn., January, 1897. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- A COMRADE'S TRIBUTE W. C. Boze's Sketch of B. B. Thackston I loved, in boyhood, manhood and later years, B. B. Thackston. He was a noble man, of sterling qualities, and of rare mental attributes. Thackston and I went out together, early in 1861, to fight for the cause which we deemed right, enlisting in Company B. Seventh Tennessee Regiment, with John A. Fite Captain, afterwards made Colonel, when Lieut. John Allen was promoted to the Captaincy. After brief drills at Camp Trousdale, we were ordered to Virginia; but we got there too late to participate in the first great battle fought at Manassas. We were hardened by our sojourn in the mountains of northwestern Virginia, and were eager to learn something about fighting, but long ere Lee's surrender we realized the horrors of war. From northwestern Virginia we returned to Staunton with Loring, and proceeded thence down the Valley of Virginia, driving the Federals across the Potomac, from Bath (under Jackson) to Hancock next to Romney, to Fredericksburg, to Yorktown, and then with Joseph E. Johnston, on his famous retreat to Richmond. Our first regular engagement was at Seven Pines, where we lost our gallant and idolized Hatton. We next met the enemy in the seven days' fight around Richmond, beginning at Mechanicsville and ending at Malvern Hill. At Gaines' Mill our beloved Lieutenant Colonel- the princely John K. Howard-fell. It happened that Thackston and I were among the number to bear him to the field hospital. After these heroic struggles, Thackston and I were among the eight of Company B not having received wounds, nor unable from exhaustion to answer at first roll call. At Cedar Run I was wounded, and not many days afterward, Thackston was wounded at Fredericksburg, which closed his career as an active soldier. Both of us were declared unfit for field service, and assigned to light duty at Charlottesville. Soon becoming impatient, we applied, but in vain, for a transfer to cavalry. Thackston was subsequently detailed to go with a Capt. Miller to procure horses for Gen. Lee's Army, and just before the surrender I was detailed to help deliver these horses. We anticipated that we should rejoin our comrades, but when within six miles of Lynchburg the sad tidings reached us that Lee had surrendered his depleted army. Miller at once released us. Thackston and I reported at Charlottesville, for we wanted to know whether we could be of further aid to the cause, or be honorably released. After riding all night and a part of the next day, we arrived at Charlottesville -sixty miles in the opposite direction from home- and awaited orders which never came. After a few days, having carefully considered the situation -nearly all the Southern railroads destroyed-we decided to go to Winchester, a beautiful village in the Virginia Valley connecting with the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, hoping to get paroles and free transportation home; but we were denied the latter, unless we took the oath. This we refused to do, contending for the terms of Lee's surrender. The officer of the post tried to advise us, saying that the war was over and we would have to take the oath when we got home. We replied that we "went out of the Union with Tennessee, and will go back with her. If her people take the oath we will, but we can't take it for free transportation." When paroled, we filled our havesacks with cheese and crackers and turned our faces up the once beautiful Valley of Virginia, but were then 160 miles further from home than when Miller released us, but still determined to demean ourselves creditable to Confederate soldiers. On every side were evidences of the devastation and ruin which Sheridan had wrought. Splendid barns had been burned and all the fences demolished. The Virginians were already repairing the damages, making crops without fences. Day after day, for over two weeks, we tramped on sleeping in outhouses or under trees, declining beds kindly offered. By a strange coincidence, footsore and weary, we reached, about dark one day, the same old stone church where our regiment had camped in 1861, which the older residents informed us was erected long before the Declaration of Independence. In 1861 the citizens hauled our regiment wood to cook with to save the beautiful oak grove surrounding this church. There was a quaint little stone office near the church and again Thackston and I found repose on the floor. Those trees through those eventful years, were left, although alternately, Federals and Confederates had occupied that country. This spot alone was spared, with sacred and historic interests. Around this church there are still traces of the breastworks thrown up by the American patriots during the revolutionary War, against the Tories. On our way the Virginians were universally kind, always giving us bread on application. When we reached the East Tennessee and Virginia Road at Salem, our longing for home increased. Soldiers from the Western army returning to Virginia and North Carolina, told us that it would be extremely hazardous to attempt to pass through East Tennessee, and we had lived through too many horrible scenes on the battlefield to invite further risks, so we decided to stop for the time and offer our services to some farmer for board. Jacob Woolwine, who owned a farm on New River, in Pulaski County, Va., accepted our proposition. Faithfully we performed the different tasks assigned us. He had just finished planting corn, and we stayed until his crop was "laid by," his wheat cut and hauled up, and his hay safely housed. The fare was excellent and our stay there was very pleasant. The Woolwines were refined people and it was especially fortunate that we fell in the society of such a -delightful family. They were devout Christians. Every night and morning we joined them in family prayers. Mrs. Woolwine and her daughters wove and made for us two pairs of pants, each, from home-spun flax, also two pairs of socks-very acceptable gifts we reached our homes about the middle of August, 1865. Some incidents from my comrade's experience will illustrate his magnanimity and benevolence of spirit. A man in our company always sought the sheltered places in battle. Our brave and generous Captain placed this timid soldier under Thackston's charge, with instructions to use the bayonet if necessary to force him into battle. He faltered when the "minie" balls began to sing around him, although Thackston repeatedly pushed him with the bayonet. At length perceiving that neither persuasion nor compulsion was of any avail, the brave Thackston ordered the weaker comrade to the rear and turned to enter the conflict in earnest. At another time an Irish teamster-an irascible, besotted wretch-who drove a wagon for Captain Miller with cooking utensils, tents, etc. one morning when everything was in readiness for their departure, stolidly refused to drive his team, and no argument could induce him to do so. Thoroughly exasperated, Capt. Miller ordered Thackston to load his gun and shoot the mutinous driver if he continued to persist. The order was given, "One!" "Two!" "Three!" but when tho word "Fire!" came, Thackston's manly heart refused to execute the command. He lowered his gun and, turning to his officer, said, "Captain, I can't kill him, but I'll put him in the wagon." Miller replied: "Do as you please, Thackston." Thackston and I married the same year; we located within a few miles of each other, and were ever closely associated. I never knew a more courageous, loyal and honorable man, one who was never swayed by public sentiment, but always dared to follow the dictates of his heart. But my sorrow overcomes me when I try to write the last sad details of this noble man's life. On Saturday night, November 21, 1896, this friend and comrade met with us at the Masonic Lodge, Snow Creek, Elmwood, Tenn. He sat against a low curtained window and, on accidentally leaning, he fell through the window nearly twenty feet, and sustained injuries from which he died in a few hours. We were not only fellow-members of that Lodge, but also of the E. L. Bradley Bivouac, Riddleton, Tenn. With the physicians and other anxious friends, I stood at his bedside until his true life went out at midnight, and I continued my watch through the remaining hours. On November 22nd, the Sabbath day, we laid him to rest with Masonic honors, in the family burying ground. He leaves a devoted wife and family of interesting children, for whom he had provided a lovely home. The Confederate cause we loved so well is gone, Thackston is gone, and I feel that I am swiftly nearing the shore of eternal rest!
Confederate Veteran, Vol. V, No. 2, Nashville, Tenn., February, 1897. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- THE DREUX BATTALION Col. R. G. Lowe, Galveston, Texas I note in the VETERAN for January a brief mention made by Comrade R. H. Burton, of Fenner's Louisiana Battery, of the death of Col. Charles Didier Dreux, in a skirmish near Young's Mill, Va. The writer had lost track of Comrade Burton, or, as he was familiarly called in the battalion, Dick Burton, and it will be interesting to the writer to know just where Comrade Burton at present lives. The little incident related by Comrade Burton through the VETERAN touching the death of Col. Dreux in a skirmish near Young's Mill omits the date of the occurrence. The writer, who was a member of the Shreveport Grays, recalls distinctly the date and circumstance. It was on the morning of the 5th of July, 1861. The Dreux Battalion, composed of the first five companies that volunteered from the State of Louisiana-namely, the Orleans Cadets, Louisiana Guard, Crescent Rifles, Shreveport Grays, and Grivot Guards-was encamped at Young's Mill on the 4th of July, 1861. A barbecue was prepared to celebrate the day, at which speeches of a patriotic order were made by different members of the battalion. Col. Dreux, or Charlie, as he was familiarly called by nearly all the members of the battalion, was an orator of splendid order. Full of the Creole fire of his French ancestry, young, and handsome, with a voice that rang as clear as a trumpet, I can recall now the closing words of Dreux's address on the occasion of that barbecue. Alluding to the political complexion of affairs at that date, Dreux, touching his sword handle with his right hand, remarked: "This is our day, and we will have it." He alluded to the Fourth of July, then, as now, claimed by the Confederates to be their day, as well as the day of their Northern adversaries. On the evening of that same Fourth of July a detail was made of twenty men from each one of the companies constituting the battalion, who, without knowing the purpose of their mission, were marched to a point on the lower peninsula of Virginia, close to the banks of the James River, near a farm known as "Smith's farm." It was known to the Confederate commanders that a party of Federal officers were in the habit of coming out from Hampton, then occupied by the Federals, to breakfast each morning at Smith's farm. The purpose of the detail from the Dreux Battalion above mentioned was to ambuscade and capture this Federal detachment. The officers from the Federal station were usually accompanied by an escort from the New York Fire Zouaves. The march from Young's Mill was made during the night, and daybreak found the men concealed by the roadside at a point near where the road from Hampton crossed the road leading from Young's Mill to the lower peninsula. A miscalculation as to the hour of the approach of the Federals, through an irregularity on the part of the ambuscading party, gave the alarm to the approaching escort, and the command to halt was distinctly heard by the ambuscading party. It was in the early dawn of the morning of the 5th of July, 1861. Two scouts were immediately advanced by the Federal party, who, discovering Col. Dreux standing up by the side of a tree, fired arid retreated. A musket ball took effect in the sword belt of Dreux, and he fell, dying instantly. The confusion created by the death of the commander of the ambuscading party resulted in the failure of the enterprise. As stated by Comrade Burton, Dreux was the first commissioned officer killed in the Confederate service, if not the first Louisianian of any rank who fell in that struggle. The writer was detailed as one of an escort of six who brought back the remains of Dreux to New Orleans, where he was buried in great state by the citizens of that place, a memorable oration having been pronounced over the remains by Col. Olivier, a Louisiana orator of mark, and a cousin of the deceased. The occasion was a day of general cessation of business in the Crescent City, over thirty thousand people, it was estimated, being in the procession on the occasion of his funeral. The city was draped in mourning along the entire line of the procession from the City Hall to the cemetery, every mark of respect being shown to the gallant and loved Dreux, who was the first to offer up his life from the Pelican State. Many incidents of a pleasant nature could be recalled from the records of the Dreux Battalion. The battalion, in its original formation, did not maintain itself a sufficient length of time to record any special deeds of a military nature. This was due to the circumstances that the battalion was composed of troops sworn into the Confederate service for a period of twelve months. The term of four of the companies expired previous to the passage of the conscript bill, and, although they remained as an organization in front of McClellan on the Peninsula during that officer's first advance from that quarter a month after their terms of service had expired, yet the battalion broke up in its organized capacity just previous to the battle of Williamsburg. The four companies whose term expired immediately took service under Capt. Fenner, and formed the famous battery which did such excellent service in the Army of Tennessee. The only company in the battalion whose term had not expired upon the passage of the conscript law, the Shreveport Grays, was attached to the First Louisiana Regiments and saw service in many of the important battles participated in by the Army of Northern Virginia. An incident connected with the old battalion may be worth repeating here. As can easily be conceived, being composed of the first volunteers from Louisiana, the best blood of that State was represented in its ranks. Ned Phelps (only some few years ago passer over the river), a handsome young fellow, tall and erect, was a private in the Crescent Rifles. On the occasion of one of Magruder's midnight marches up and down the Peninsula the gray dawn of a crisp Virginia morning found Ned Phelps foraging for breakfast. It seems that Gen. Magruder and his staff had breakfast prepared at a farmhouse, where Ned, looking out for the adornment of the inner man, made his appearance. The General and staff had taken their seats at table. and were preparing to do justice to the viands set before them. Without ceremony Ned walked into the dining room, and, discovering a vacant seat, promptly took possession thereof. Magruder eyed him for a moment, and, with the lisping expression which the General affected, addressed Ned something like this: "Young man, are you aware whom you are breakfasting with?" "Well," said Ned, "before I came soldiering I used to be particular whom I ate with, but now I don't mind much-so the victuals are clean." This answer so tickled Magruder that he immediately responded, "Young man, stay where you are and have what you want," which Ned did. From this time on the members of the battalion became great favorites with Magruder, and the details to headquarters were of frequent occurrence. It would be a pity to let Ned's unique rejoinder to Magruder pass unrecorded. On another occasion, while lying in winter quarters at Spradley's farm, on the banks of the James River, near the town of Williamsburg, the Louisianians in the battalion proposed to give the denisons of that region an idea of what a Mardi Gras celebration was in the Crescent City. Materials were not very numerous in that day, but, with the assistance of the citizens of Williamsburg, some two hundred New Orleans boys got up a wonderful procession, rigged out in as fantastic a manner as it was possible to accomplish. The celebration closed with an entertainment given to Gen. Magruder and his staff at an inn in Williamsburg by the members of the battalion. The same Ned Phelps recorded above was a leader in that affair. Another member of the battalion from New Orleans, Billy Campbell (who likewise passed away only a few years ago), was a splendid make-up of a young girl. Campbell was perfection in this regard, it being almost impossible to detect that he was not a girl. Leaning upon the arm of Ned Phelps, Campbell entered the apartment where Magruder was dining in the Virginia hostelry, and was introduced to the General by his friend Ned as Miss Campbell, of New Orleans, on a visit to her brother, a member of the battalion. The scene was most ludicrous to those who were acquainted with the joke. Magruder, with that gallantry which always characterized him, placed "Miss" Campbell on his right hand, who partook liberally of everything that was going, including the liquors. How far this thing would have gone on it is difficult to say, had not some of the boys ripped up a feather bed belonging to the landlord of the hotel and permitted its contents to fall through an aperture immediately above the dining room, calling out at the same time: "This is a Louisiana snowstorm." During the snowstorm Ned and "Miss" Campbell took their departure, leaving the General in doubt as to whether he had been in the company of a live lady or a spook. Confederate Veteran, Vol. V, No. 2, Nashville, Tenn., February, 1897. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- THE EX-CONFEDERATE Mr. Marion J. Verdery "If I were called upon to epitomize my tribute to the ex-Confederate soldier, I would borrow one sentence from me friend, Victor Smith, and say as he did in writing to me recently on the subject: 'The Ex-Confederate soldier, faithful to the lost cause, yet true to the cause that lost it.' Lacking years deprive me of the privilege of speaking to the toast out of a personal experience, but the fact that I was not born earlier than I was is not my fault but my fate. I am not a Confederate veteran, but only a Confederate survivor; not 'the survival of the fittest,' but the survival of him who 'fit' not. But I am licensed to speak to the toast through the blood of my brothers, and my whole heart is in the subject. I count myself happy to pay tribute to that disbanded legion of honor, whose every conflict was a battle for conscience' sake, whose every victory was the triumph of an honest cause, and whose final defeat developed a heroism and fortitude without parallel in the history of conquered peoples. "The Ex-Confederate soldier should feel proud of his past, satisfied with his present and hopeful of his future. He has proven himself a hero in war, a nobleman in peace and an honor at all times to the land of his birth. His record during the war was that of supreme courage, and his record since then has been that of heroic patience. Laying down his shield and buckler at Appomattox, he buttoned his parole beneath his faded jacket next to his heart, and returned home to begin life anew. The battles he had fought during the four long years of bloody struggle were not half so hard as the one which now confronted him, and how he has fought that hardest fight is set forth in the rehabilitation of his land and the re-establishment of his people. He turned his face homeward after the surrender with the brave spirit and manly resolution which filled the heart of that representative member of a Georgia regiment, who said to his comrades when he got his parole: 'I am going back to Dixie, kiss my wife and children, plough up my new ground field and make a crop, and if the Yankees bother me any more, I will whip 'em again.' "The ex-Confederate, standing to-day in unimpeachable loyalty to our indissoluble Union and vieing worthily with all others in up-building the strength and glory of our Republic, is also the hero of a past for which he has neither shame nor regret, but which he holds as a hallowed memory, more precious than his birthright and as sacred as his honor. That past recalls to him a mighty struggle; recalls sorrows and sufferings so widespread and intense that his whole land seemed then one vast altar on which all the treasures and traditions of a people were laid in sacrifice for the faith that was in them. As a soldier the ex-Confederate needs no eulogy. His patience through privation outlasted the war itself, and his behavior in battle gave him the glory of renown and an indisputable title to knighthood. "Since the war he has acquitted himself as a citizen with all the credit which his credit as a soldier demanded. He has trampled disaster under his feet; has made the devastation of his native land give place to new born thrift and prosperity; he has re-builded her destroyed cities and made the wide fields that drank the blood of her sons rich again with the beauty of ripening fruit and the harvests of golden grain; he has harnessed her rushing waters and drawn them like millions of laborers into service. His industry resounds in the ceaseless blows of heavy hammers on mammoth anvils from which sparks fly heavenward like stars of promise for his future. "He has made his way to the front in every professional calling. In short, he is today a factor in all the affairs of our common country and can well afford to muster in dress parade before all the world and count on unstinted praise and esteem. The Ex-Confederate soldier is immortal. He has his place in American history. He has illumined its pages and enriched its theme. "While living, he will always so impress himself upon the material and intellectual developments of the day as to be a self-evident force in shaping the destiny of the country, and when dead his memory will be forever safe in the keeping of all who honor the true and the brave. The dead Confederate shall ne'er be forgot, until the splendid shafts which today rise heavenward in his honor crumble to dust; until the elements are less true to him than they were at Arlington on that memorable Decoration Day, when the countless graves of the boys who wore the blue were hidden beneath a wealth of floral tributes, while the graves of the unknown Confederate dead, down behind the hill were forgotten. Don't you remember how in the darkness of the night, when the world was asleep, a great storm came out of the sky, and the wind dipped down on those hills and, gathering great armfuls of flowers from the favored graves, bore them away to the graves of the unknown dead? "No Confederate soldier is buried out of mind, for even those who sleep in the fastnesses of Tennessee mountains or in the winding Virginia valleys, have their graves marked, as Harry Flash so sweetly said: Though no shaft of pallid marble rears its white and ghastly head, Telling wanderers in the valley of the virtues of the dead; Yet a lily is their tombstone and a dewdrop, pure and bright, Is the epitaph an angel writes in the stillness of the night. "The ex-Confederate soldier is the exponent of that short lived government of which a great hearted Englishman said: No nation rose so white and fair, None fell so pure of crime. "When I study the heavens by night and contemplate the brilliancy of Jupiter, Mars, Saturn and Uranus, I see in their shining glory a fit emblem of the matchless record of our peerless Lee, our intrepid Johnston, our redoubtable Forrest, and our gallant Longstreet; and when the bright flashing meteors blaze their tracks of burning beauty across the firmament, I see in their shining splendor the careers of Stonewall Jackson and Albert Sidney Johnston. But all these do not complete the glory of the night, but it has its fullness in the countless myriad of nameless stars as they troop toward the Milky Way, and in them I see the cohorts of Confederate soldiers whose deeds of daring gave new lustre to the pages of history, and whose splendid heroism made imperishable impress on the heart and mind of the world. Then fill your glasses, fill them up to the brim, We'll drink a deep bumper in honor of him, Of dear Johnny Reb, in his jacket of gray, Standing guard o'er thoughts of a bygone day. 0! River of Years, thou hast drowned that day, Thy deep-flowing current has borne it away; But thy banks still bloom with memories bright, And our toast is to them and to Johnny to-night.
Confederate Veteran, Vol. V, No. 3, Nashville, Tenn., March, 1897. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- MY UNCLE'S WAR STORY Edith Hall Marble, in Chaperone Magazine, St. Louis "Whose picture is this, uncle? One of your old sweethearts, I suppose." These words are spoken by a bright, rosy-cheeked maiden of sixteen. It is a summer day on the shores of old Lake Michigan, and the question occasioned by seeing on the table in the parlor of my dear old home, Where I have spent so many happy days, an old-fashioned likeness of some Southern beauty. The eager question is answered in almost as eager a tone. "No, my girl, not mine, but some other fellow's; and 'thereby hangs a tale.' All day long the battle had raged at Shiloh-on that sunny Sabbath April day-and all day long we, of the Federal army, had been driven back from post to post. It was nearly three o'clock in the afternoon. Johnston was dead, and the Confederate army was badly shattered. Buell was coming, and the Southern army must break the way to the landing before the day was done. Assembling the New Orleans Guard and some other equally as reliable troops, Gen. Beauregard made a desperate attack on the center of the Federal position. Bert Webster had massed his artillery there, and Hulbert's remnants were in near support of it. Bravely the Confederates made the attack; but, swept by the heavy guns of Webster and enfilading rifle-fire from the infantry, they were defeated. On Monday morning, with Buell's fresh troops, supported by the reorganized old army, the Federals took the advance. It happened that my regiment (the Fifteenth Illinois) marched over the ground where Beauregard had made his ineffectual attack on Sunday afternoon, and we passed over a field strewn with the bodies of brave men that fell there. We halted, and there, close beside the corpse of Capt. Lindsley, of New Orleans, lay a youth. He had been shot through the breast, and, while he was not dead, I could see that he was going fast. He seemed in a half-conscious condition, for every few minutes his eyes would open and then wearily close again. His extreme youth, and the fact that he held a portrait clasped in his hand, caught my attention. Beside him were several keepsakes made by some woman, probably the same dear one whose picture he held in his blood-stained hand. I gently raised him in my arms and carried him a few yards away to a more quiet spot, where the noise of the rabble could not be so distinctly heard. There beneath the laurel blossoms, red as his own blood, he lay, still tightly clasping the portrait. I bathed his forehead with cooling water, which I brought from a spring near by, and soon my care was rewarded by having him open lots eyes to consciousness. Great brown eyes they were, and, as his lips parted into a smile, teeth of a beautiful whiteness glistened through the small dark mustache. 'Are you in pain?' I asked. 'No; only weary and tired,' he answered, again closing his eyes and resinking away into unconsciousness. In a few minutes his eyes reopened, and this time the portrait was feebly lifted and laid upon his breast, and his eyes eagerly glanced at me. 'Could you, would you, find her?' 'Find whom, my dear boy?' I asked. His only answer was a deep-drawn sigh, as he turned his head, and for a few moments there was silence, broken only by the twittering of the birds as they flew from tree to tree. Not a soul was stirring; the dead and wounded lay at such a distance from us that not a sound disturbed the composure of nature. All nature was sedate and serene. As I knelt beside this dying youth my thoughts wandered, my limbs grew weary, but I patiently bore the uncomfortable position rather than disturb him. Surely this uncertain earthly life is not man's only dwelling place. How like a bubble it all seemed, I thought, as in the distance the twilight shadows slowly gathered. When first blown they rise up in the air, then fall helplessly to the earth. After all, this life is only an education to the enjoyments of the life beyond; else these high and glorious aspirations that at times burn within our breasts would never come. So my thoughts ran until, with a start, I glanced more closely at the silent form. He lay so still and his breathing seemed so faint that I bent over him to see if life had gone out with the setting sun. No, the great brown eyes were gazing far off into space. 'My dear fellow,' and tears came to my eyes, 'tell me what I can do for you,' I muttered brokenly. ' Give me some water, and I think I can tell you.' I moistened his lips with the cooling draught, and in a faint voice he began. I can remember what he said, almost word for word, in spite of the many years that have passed since those dreadful times. 'I was just twenty, and was living with my grandmother,' he began, ' having lost my parents at an early age, when I met the girl who has been the one love of my life. I wasn't like most of the fellows-one girl to-day and another to-morrow. Such things seemed more serious to me. And one day there came rumors of war that disturbed the quiet of our little village. I became a volunteer, and it was on the evening before my departure that I told her of my love. How well I remember that summer evening! a time when nature is so beautiful in the South. I can even recall the exact spot on which we stood, the north, end of the piazza. The next day I joined my regiment, full of hope and joy for the future. Raise my head; I can hardly breathe. There, that is better. This is her picture. She gave it to me just before we parted. Won't you take it to her and tell her that my last thought was of her? And, O! tell her'- His voice died away in a whisper. I tried to revive him, but the poor fellow was gone; and gone, too, without telling me the name of his sweetheart or the village where she lived. I gazed at him in a dreamy way for some time, not able to realize that his lips had framed their last sentence and that death, that mysterious power, had passed by. At last I sank down beside him, exhausted. How long I sat in this stupefied condition I do not know. Overhead the stars came out, one by one, and far off in the heavens the moon sent her bright rays over the silent world, making the trees cast shadows both mysterious and beautiful. Surrounded as I was by these seemingly unearthly powers, I tried to sleep until the dawn should break. But the long day and march, the touching tale of this soldier boy, now ended so tragically, had succeeded in getting my nerves so unstrung that sleep was out of the question. So I lay there with many thoughts crowding through my brain. How vast the heavens looked; how wonderful the expanse of the sky, dotted with stars that sparkled like diamonds; and what a solemn hush seemed to pervade the universe! So I soliloquized the night through. With the first signs of an awakening world I gathered myself together, tried to refresh my weary eyes by dashing some of the fresh spring-water into them; then, leaning over the form of the dead soldier, I took the portrait gently from his hand and put it in my own breast-pocket, and carried it through many other bloody battles. I always thought it a talisman, as I passed through many a hard-fought field. After seeing that he was given as decent a burial as was possible at that time, I joined my regiment on their march. It was days and weeks before I got his pleading dark eyes out of my thoughts, and it was only when I swore to myself that I would find the girl and deliver the picture to her that I had any rest. After the war was over, and the nation was trying to recover from her disabled condition, I made efforts to find her. I inquired concerning his regiment. But the Southerners had been so completely beaten that day at Shiloh that I could secure little information; and the little that I did get, though it led me to two or three Southern villages, never succeeded in helping me to find the girl. After giving as much time to the search as I could, I returned home really sad and disappointed. And that is the picture, my dear, that you are looking at I have always wondered if she ever learned about her lover's death there underneath-the laurel at Shiloh." Confederate Veteran, Vol. V, No. 3, Nashville, Tenn., March, 1897. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- TIME TO CALL OFF "DIXIE" Unknown Elite, a society periodical of Chicago, contained an editorial recently under the above caption, in which it argued: It is sectional, and its tendency is to keep alive the lost cause. The "Star-spangled Banner," "Hail, Columbia," etc., are not sectional. Let us drop "Dixie" for good and set the bands to playing national airs. Why do Northern people go out of their way to conciliate Southern folks? They always do. At the convention of Sons and Daughters of the American Revolution, if a delegate's name from Connecticut was called, it aroused no enthusiasm; but let a name from Georgia be announced, and the house immediately found its hands. These societies are pledged to treat the war of the rebellion as if it had never occurred, so their action cannot be explained on the ninety and nine who went not astray and the rejoicing over the one wanderer basis. By all means let all be cordial and kind, but let the bands stop playing "Dixie" and the people stop playing toady. A SOUTHERN WOMAN S ANSWER. True merit rarely goes without recognition. We, as Southern people, glory in this "tendency to keep alive the sentiment of the lost cause." Why not? Have we anything of which to be ashamed? True, defeat was ours, but it was brought about not through any lack of bravery, gallantry, or patriotism for what we believe to be right because of its being guaranteed by the Constitution of the United States. The record of Confederate soldiers is without a parallel in history and, as time goes on, instead of being classed as traitors, their many gallant deeds and loyal hearts will be appreciated for their true worth, and their names go down in history as heroes true to every trust. "Time to call off 'Dixie?' " No! In Dixie's land we'll take our stand, We'll live and die by Dixie. It is not that we love the "Star-spangled Banner" less, but "Dixie" will always be absolutely sacred to Southern hearts. Around "Dixie" twine our fondest memories and dearest associations. "Dixie" went with our loved ones through all the perils of war, and in their darkest hours of strife "Dixie's" bright, sweet strain chewed the boys on. Why, then, should we call off "Dixie?" Its strains are melodious and edifying. Rather call off "Marching through Georgia," which reminds one of naught save cruelty and ruin, and in whose bars there is no music. Why is it that the lady of the South receives the recognition of any convention in which she participates? It is simply that a true Southern woman stands out in any company and shows by every word and deed her superiority. She realizes her true worth, and others are bound to recognize it. We agree that it is time to put a stop to "toadyism," but let the bands continue to play "Dixie," and may its strains continue to send a thrill of joy and pride to the heart of every true Southerner for generations to come! This Southern woman signs "Halcyon." ELITE ANSWERS BACK. It is all in the point of view. "Marching through Georgia" to a Northerner does not mean" cruelty and ruin," but victory and union. However, Northern people are quite willing to substitute "Yankee Doodle" for that energetic tune.
Confederate Veteran, Vol. V, No. 3, Nashville, Tenn., March, 1897. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- COMRADES IN BORDER SECTIONS Unknown The VETERAN records ever with special pride the faithfulness of comrades in such sections as East Tennessee and Missouri, where continually avowed loyalty has often cost much more than in sections of the South, where so nearly all are one way in honoring the Confederate dead. Comrades at Knoxville and about Morristown and Bristol are so true that special attention to their testimonies is deserved. In this issue we give a held-over account of the last Memorial Day service at Knoxville. Comrade Frank A. Moses, having charge of the services, had all things done in a most orderly way. He had selected Mr. Charles T. Cates, Jr., the son of a veteran, to make the address, and in introducing him said: Comrades: For nearly a quarter of a century we have annually assembled in this sacred place to join with the ladies of the Memorial Association in paying respect to the memory of our dead heroes. Through all these years these noble women have come with willing hands, tearful eyes, arid tender, loving hearts to scatter sweet flowers on the last resting-place of the boys who wore the gray and who suffered and died in defense of the land they loved so well, far from home and loved ones. To-day we look around and miss the well known faces of many of those mothers in Israel whose presence was always an inspiration to us. One by one they have gone to their reward, and a younger generation has taken up the task that they so lovingly performed. And our ranks, too, have been growing thin as the years rolled by. Some who were with us even one short year ago have heard the last bugle-call, and today we have paid tribute to their memory. The youngest of us who followed the stars and bars and the red cross of St. Andrew have long since reached the summit in life's journey, and are now descending the western slope. Soon "taps" will have sounded for us too, and the "rear-guard" will have "crossed over the river to rest under the shade of the trees." Who then will take our places? Who then will gather here and over yonder in that other city of the dead, Gray Cemetery, to do for us all what we do today for these dead comrades? Surely we may bequeath this duty to those who must soon take our places in all the affairs of life: our children and our children's children. I am commissioned by the ladies of the Memorial Association to present to you to-day a young man, the worthy son of a gallant sire, a young man who is proud of the fact that his father wore the gray. Mr. Cates, in becoming manner, said: Sons and Daughters of the South: These are our dead. We are here to honor, not to defend, them; they need no defense. And it would be passing strange if the sons and daughters of this glorious Southland did not, with each recurrent year and when all nature has put on her fairest robes, assemble with reverent hearts to deck with the emblems of purity, peace, and love the graves of our heroes, in remembrance of their deeds and to keep alive upon the altar of our hearts the memory of their sacrifices and their patriotism. More than a generation has passed, and still we come---their comrades, their wives, their sons, their daughters. Surely no ordinary sentiment inspired these men. Who were they that, with this lapse of time, live to be remembered by such hosts from the Potomac to the Rio Grande's waters, who bring the sweetest flowers of spring time to cover their graves' Are these the graves of men who in peace and quiet lived out the period usually allotted to mortals and were carried to their last resting-place to go "down to dust, unwept, unhonored, and unsung?" No! These are the graves of heroes, and with them lie their brethren on every hillside, in every dale, and by every river throughout this land they loved so well. Amid the roar of battle, and with the scream of grape and canister for their last requiem, their souls took flight. They died for their country, for you, for me. They saw not the end, they wore not the laurels of victory; but they were spared the ashes of defeat. Their memory should be embalmed in the hearts of every true son and daughter of this Southland, and these beautiful floral offerings will never be abandoned so long as their worth and patriotism shall be remembered; and when we no longer remember them we shall cease to deserve them and the glorious heritage which has descended to us from their deeds of valor and their examples of devotion to principle and duty. Who will say that we may not honor our heroic dead? We honor ourselves in honoring them; and that people which forgets such dead as these will no longer rear men worth remembering. We are not here to prove that they were right. We know they believed that they were right; and, save for the stern decree and arbitrament of war to which we yield, and from which there is no appeal, who in this broad Southland would say that they were wrong? Throughout the world's history and back to the first days when men began to associate themselves together in their earliest rude governments, in what age, under what clime, will you find such men as these? In all the historic records of past ages, wherever people have struggled for principle and died for country, no greater examples of heroic devotion to duty, no more magnificent exhibitions of valor, no more suffering and patient self-denial, can be found than among the soldiers of the Confederacy. Come with me down the vista of ages, strewn with the wrecks and marred by the ruins of earth's proudest empires; search among their archives for their bravest and their best, and where, I ask you, will names be found more entitled to be fixed on fame's proud temples than the immortal names of the courtly Lee; of Jackson, the Stone Wall: the inteprid and chivalrous Johnstons, the knightly Stuart, Prince Rupert of the Confederacy, and a myriad of others, whose names will live forever and whose fame will be as enduring as the mountains that pierce the sky? And here we would be recreant to ourselves and the sacred heritage of his name did we forget that calm, sedate figure in the executive mansion at Richmond, who had followed the flag of his country on the torrid plains of Mexico, who with credit and dignity had filled a place in the cabinet of the Union and the Federal Senate. Beloved by the people of his state and the whole Southland, he was called to fill the highest place in the Confederacy; a warrior whose escutcheon was unsullied; a statesman, liberal, just, and humane, but traduced and slandered beyond all parallel-his name and fame will grow brighter as we are farther away from that dread conflict and the passions engendered, and his name will be cherished by future generations of the land he loved so well and which now holds in its bosom all that is mortal of the President of the Confederacy. In looking back to those days of blood and suffering we are perhaps too apt to dwell longest upon those great leaders who are now world-famous and whose genius has forever fixed them as brightest stars in the galaxy of heroes of all ages. But let us not forget that the private soldier, who neither wore stars upon his collar nor bars upon his shoulders, but, with knapsack and musket, bore the brunt of the hot, weary march, the winter's blast, the long, quiet vigil of the sentinel's beat; ever ready, ever willing to rush with the squadrons of Forrest or stand like a stone wall in the battalions of Jackson; as chivalrous as Bayard, as merry as Rupert; following the lead of their chieftains, and oftentimes leading them-from Manassas to Appomattox they fell, uncomplaining, regretting each that he had only one life to give for his country; and down through the lapse of ages their memory will grow greener and their fame shall be more lasting than yon marble shaft which loving hearts have erected in fond and tender remembrance of their valor and virtue. No minstrel may single out their names, but On fame's eternal camping-ground Their silent tents are spread And glory guards with solemn round The bivouac of our dead. Does our fancy dwell upon the terms Confederate dead and Confederate veterans? We could not forget them if we would, and we would not if we could. We come not with apologies, but with love and honor. Yet, to-day there are no Confederates. Those words rest with the fading gray jacket and the rusting sword, placed away forever with the tenderest memories. The dead are not Confederates, but heroes; the living, with a tear for the banner That will live in song and story, Though its folds are in the dust. have their eyes fixed upon the flag of the Union, and are the proud citizens of the grandest republic the world has ever seen. They are in the house built by their fathers, and they are at home to stay. Among good citizens they are the best, and among the patriots none will be more devoted and loyal to protect and preserve this "indissoluble Union of indestructible states" from the assaults of foreign enemies or the dark machinations of domestic foes. Shall we not say this. and will not our brethren of the North believe us? Aye! surely they will and do. They need no other guaranty than the lives of such men. And what of the sons and daughters of these men? Will the day ever come that the memory of that father who battled with Lee and Jackson or fell with Pickett at Gettysburg or Johnston at Shiloh cause you a blush of shame? Never! Perish the thought! As you have learned, so teach your children that their grandsires believed they were right, that with undying devotion they loved the Constitution of their country, that they fought and died in defense of principle and their hearthstones; and at the same time show them the flag of the Union and teach them that its stars must not be dimmed nor its stripes suffered to pale. And then, should the Union have need of defenders, none will be found quicker to respond or more willing to die than the sons and grandsons of those who wore the gray. Confederate Veteran, Vol. V, No. 4, Nashville, Tenn., April, 1897. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- THE SIEGE OF PORT HUDSON Col. E. C. McDowell, Nashville, Tenn. The surrender of Port Hudson took place on the 9th of July, 1863. Owing to the stirring events of that particular period, and especially as attention was then directed to the siege of Vicksburg, Port Hudson and its gallant defense failed of merited consideration. However, there was not made so truly brave a defense of any fortified place during the war. The little army at Port Hudson was surrounded and besieged for forty-nine days, and during the last ten days subsisted on rice, molasses, and mule meat. The mules were regularly butchered and the meat issued as rations. This siege was a full test of all the soldierly qualities: personal courage, endurance, and real fortitude. Here the highest qualities of the soldier were tested. There was no need of generalship. Our commander, Gen. Frank Gardner, had to exercise only his stubborn courage. There was no occasion for strategy. The besieged army was composed of Tennessee, Mississippi, Arkansas, and Alabama troops. They were generally familiar from boyhood with firearms. This was a fight in which the individual pluck and cunning of the private soldier told. He was largely thrown on his own resources, had to protect himself as best he could, and with deadly aim shoot as rapidly as possible. Commands were rarely necessary. The works at Port Hudson were constructed to be defended by twenty thousand men, and we had there, before the siege, nearly that number; but the necessities about Vicksburg required the moving of Maxey's and Gregg's brigades and other troops that went to join Joe Johnston at Jackson, leaving their sick at Port Hudson. When the siege began we had for duty only about thirty-two hundred infantry and about four hundred and fifty artillerymen to defend four miles of earthworks-simply earthworks, and in no sense a fort. These works started from the river, encircled the place, and extended back to the river some miles below. On the 22nd of May Gen. Banks, with an army of fifty thousand men, appeared before Port Hudson. He placed his troops so as to completely environ us. All the timber had been cut for a half mile outside the works, so that an attacking force had to march over an open field, impeded by the fallen timber. A flew days after Gen. Banks had placed his troops and reconnoitered, he decided to attack at a point about one mile from the lower point of our works. He charged in column with a regiment front. Our whole defending force was brought to the point of attack. The column of the enemy came gallantly from the woods where they had formed, but before they got within two hundred yards of our works they were broken and scattered in utter confusion. They retreated to the cover of the timber. The charging column fired not a gun, but charged with fixed bayonets. We were only endangered by the enemy's artillery and their sharpshooters, who had crept to cover behind felled timber near our breastworks. The slaughter of the enemy in this charge was terrific. A stand of grape or canister would literally make a lane through them. Some days afterward Gen. Banks made a similar attack, with like result. This time he charged near the middle of our works. About a week later he made another assault at the upper point of our works, where they touched the river above. This was to his army even more disastrous than either of the other attacks. He made no more assaults, but sat down to a regular siege. He kept up almost a continual fire with one hundred and twenty-five pieces of artillery. His sharpshooters, from the felled timber, watched every chance to pick off our men. We had few wounded; nearly all were killed outright, either by cannon-balls and shells or by Minie balls through the head. The Federal fleet, commanded by Admiral Farragut, lay in the river below us. Attached to this fleet were a number of mortar-boats, which kept up a fire night and day. Gen. Banks approached by parallel; and when we finally surrendered he had reached our works at several places and had mined our batteries. Vicksburg surrendered on the 4th of July and Port Hudson on the 9th. After the surrender of Vicksburg it was useless to longer defend Port Hudson. The Mississippi River was held at Vicksburg and at Port Hudson to maintain navigation between those points, thereby keeping open Red River, down which we procured cattle and corn to feed our army. The siege of Port Hudson was not more creditable to the Confederates than it was discreditable to the Federals. We had not men enough to make a good skirmish-line around our four miles of works. At the time of any one of the assaults made by the Federals, when the Confederates were centered at the point attacked, the thousands of Federal soldiers not engaged could have put their hands in their pockets and leisurely walked over the greater part of the ground embraced within our works. We surrendered on terms. Our private soldiers were all paroled and our officers allowed to retain their swords. We surrendered about sixteen hundred infantry and two hundred and forty artillerymen - a loss of fifty per cent. This did not include men in hospital. During the siege Banks's army was depleted from killed, wounded, and by sickness twelve thousand men. Confederate Veteran, Vol. V, No. 6, Nashville, Tenn., June, 1897. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- IN THE BATTLE OF CHANCELLORSVILLE Col. E. C. McDowell, Nashville, Tenn. Early in the spring of 1863 I was ordered to Alexander's Battalion of Artillery as ordnance officer, having passed the examination of the board as second lieutenant in the fall of 1862, while employed at the Richmond Arsenal, and where I remained until I received my commission and orders as above. This battalion had gained renown under Col. (afterwards lieutenant-general) Stephen D. Lee, especially at the second battle of Manassas and at Sharpsburg. This renown was increased under the command of Col. E. Porter Alexander, who was afterwards brigadier-general and chief of artillery of Longstreet's Corps. He graduated number three at West Point, and was in the engineer corps of the United States Army. He was very highly esteemed in the Confederate service, and was consulted oftener by Gen. Lee than was any other artillery officer. Col. Frank Huger was the major, and he afterwards succeeded to the command. He was also a graduate of West Point. Both of our field officers were therefore highly educated, as well as experienced soldiers. I was very fortunate to be under such officers, and recollections of my military life are full of admiration of their abilities and amenities. The battalion was composed of six batteries-four Virginia, one South Carolina, and one Louisiana- while the general composition of a battalion was only four batteries. This battalion and the more noted Washington Artillery, of New Orleans, with four batteries, composed the Reserve Artillery of Longstreet's Corps, Army of Northern Virginia. We were called "Reserve" because we were not specially attached to any division, but kept for use whenever and wherever wanted; hence the battalion explanation that we were called "Reserve," because never in reserve. With this battalion I was destined to serve through the campaigns of Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, to Chickamauga, Knoxville, and East Tennessee and back to Virginia for the Wilderness, Spottsylvania Courthouse and the campaign to Petersburg, when I was promote(i and made captain and assistant to the chief ordnance officer of the Army of Northern Virginia, on duty at headquarters, where I served to Appomattox Courthouse. I reported at the winter quarters of the battalion at Carmel Church, Caroline County, on the Richmond, Fredericksburg, and Potomac Railroad. On the 29th of April marching orders were received, and we left camp at I P.M., and, by way of the telegraph and mine roads, we reached the Tabernacle Church, at the junction of the plank road about 10 A.M. the next dav, where we remained all day, waiting for orders. The next day! May 1, Gen. Stonewall Jackson appeared, and as he was conferring with Col. Alexander I had an opportunity of closely observing him, it being the first time that I had seen him. And here I must remark that he was not called "Stonewall" in the army, but always and only "Old Jack," although he was then only thirty-nine years old. He wore his new uniform, given to him by Gen. Jeb Stuart, and, the visor of his cap being pulled far down over his eves, I remember the keen look which he gave under it as he asked questions and gave his orders. He was fatally wounded at dusk the next evening. We commenced to advance both on the turnpike and plank road in the early afternoon, and drove the enemy back until we were about one and one-half miles from Chancellorsville House, the two roads being about three-quarters of a mile apart at our position, but meeting at Chancellorsville. We spent the night here, and Gens. Lee and Jackson bivouacked close by. It is related that in this bivouac, sitting on two empty U. S. cracker boxes, Gen. Jackson proposed and Gen. Lee approved the famous flank march by which the victory was gained. Early the next morning we were in this march, and at one point we were drawn aside to let the infantry pass. The men had been in winter quarters and had accumulated much "plunder," which they were trying to carry, lout the dav was a warm one and they were pushed to the utmost. The officers were continually calling out, "Close up, men! close up!" and enforced the order. As they passed us in a dogtrot many of these poor fellows stepped aside, jerked off their knapsacks or bundles, hastily selected a few precious things, and, abandoning their cherished possessions, ran on to resume their places. This flank march was from ten to twelve miles, and the troops were to make that and fight the battle at the end of it without any food, except what each mall could eat as he marched. We were interrupted in the march by shells from a battery of the enemy at an exposed place, but the simple expedient of marching around the hill, instead of over it, seemed to be sufficient to satisfy their curiosity. Fitz Lee's Cavalry, with the Stonewall Brigade, under Gen. Paxton (who was killed the next day), with two of our batteries under Maj. Huger. were detached from the march and posted across the plank road, which again leaves the turnpike, on which was the enemy's line of battle. I remained with this command, and about six o'clock Jackson's attack was delivered on the flank of the enemy on the turnpike, about a mile to the left of our position. In a few minutes we saw the rout, a confused mass of men, horses, wagons, and guns streaming down the turnpike at top speed in a real panic. We were within a good artillery distance and temptation to fire into the flank of that rout was almost irresistible, and Capt. Parker, almost with tears in his eyes, pleaded with Gen. Fitz Lee for the privilege; but he forbade it, as our own victorious troops could be expected to follow at any moment, and our shells would make no distinction. We staved there all night, and early the next morning I went up to the turnpike and followed it down to find Col. Alexander. I found hint at Hazel Grove, where thirty guns were concentrated, firing on Fair-view and Chancellorsville, and a tremendous battle was in progress. Col. Hamlin (U. S.) says that the fire from these guns determined the fate of the campaign. A shell from one of them struck a pillar in the porch of the Chancellorsville House and knocked down and temporarily disabled Gen. Hooker. The fire of the guns was stopped to let the infantry advance, and they stormed the lines at Fairview directly in our front. I remember Maj. "Willie" Pegram, of Richmond, with the fire of battle shining from his eves through his spectacles. saving to Col. Alexander: "A glorious day, Colonel, a glorious day!" It was a beautiful, bright, May Sunday morning and as I listened to him I thought of the contrast between the day and the work. We then rode over to Fairview and Chancellorsville and examined the strong position of the enemy and viewed the dubs is of the battlefield. We then marched down to Salem Church (about seven miles) toward Fredericksburg, but when we got there the battle was over, Sedgwick having been stopped in his advance. The next day, May 4, our battalion was divided. Four batteries, under Maj. Huger, supported Gen. Anderson in his attack in the evening upon Sedgwick, in which he (Sedgwick) was defeated and driven toward Banks Ford, but we were not actively engaged. I was with this detachment, and was much interested in the preparations for the advance of the infantry and the ensuing battle. As it was supposed that Sedgwick would retreat over the river at night, two of our batteries were taken to a position which commanded it, and points marked for night firing. I went with them, and at nightfall I laid down very near the guns and went to sleep. Incredible as it may seem, I was not awakened by the fire of those guns, which, of course, literally shook the ground. I had been going then four days almost without sleep and with very little to eat, and I never before knew how a tired-out soldier could sleep. The enemy's supplies were our principal resource, and I remember how good the hot coffee was which one of Moody's "Madison Tips" gave me, waking me up for the purpose, and the material for which had come from the haversack of one of the dead soldiers of the enemy lying around us. The next dav, May 5, the battalion went by the river road toward the line to which Hoover had been driven, back of Chancellorsville and resting on the river, and which he had fortified. I was taken by Col. Alexander to the Hayden House, on the high bank, a half-mile from the river, and shown a position to which I was to conduct a detachment after nightfall, to dig pits for our battalion, which was to enfilade the enemy's line the next morning. When I had brought the detachment near the point I was surprised to see camp fires and men, evidently the enemy, moving around them. and in the darkness of night it looked as if they were in the position which we were to occupv. Inexperienced as I was I did not know what to do, but, judging that it would be better to lose one man than a whole detachment, I halted it, and crept forward until I found that thev were across the river, though very near, on a bend of it. Unfortunately, therefore, much time was lost, and the pits were not as deep as they ought to have been. During the day preparations had been made for a final assault on what was left of Hooker's Army in front of us, but a heavy rainstorm came up and a general movement could not be made, and the enemy retreated across the river during the night. But the next morning the battalion had a grand artillery duel with the enemy across the river at very short range. One of the first shells from the enemv went through the roof of the Hayden House, and some of the inmates left it with agonizing screams. It was always distressing to us to see our civilian people under fire, especially women and children, and often they were exposed to it. On April 30 Gen. Hooker had announced to his army that the operations so far "have determined that our enemy must either ingloriously fly or come out from behind their defenses and give us battle on our own ground, where certain destruction awaits them." On May 6 Gen. Hooker said in general orders to his army: "If we have not accomplished all that was expected, the reasons are well known to the army. In Withdrawing from the South bank of the Rappahannock before delivering a general battle to our adversaries the army has given renewed evidence of its confidence in itself." This is what he said, but Josh Billings might say: "It sounds mighty like sarcasm." This ended the five days of the active work on one battlefield, in which Jordan's Battery, of our battalion, had fired the first and the last gun; five days and nights together, in which we were nearly always moving or fighting, or in momentary expectation of one or the other. It will be seen that in this one battle there were four distinct battlefields on which we fought, without counting the incidental skirmishing and we marched more than thirty miles during the time, not counting any march tow it. This a ill give only a faint idea of the exactions of our warfare. Of course the live Yankees gave me many a scare in this battle, but the worst came from a dead one. I went out to look for an India rubber blanket. They were plentiful on the ground, but wet and muddy, as we had had heavy rains; but finally I saw one which was tied to some muskets stuck in the ground by their bayonets, making a shelter for a dead soldier lying beneath; and this one, of course, was dry and clean. So I dismounted, and was untying it, when the supposed corpse opened his eyes and said reproachfully: "I ain't dead yet." I was dreadfully startled, but managed to say, "Excuse me, sir; I thought you were dead," mounted my horse, and rode away. Confederate Veteran, Vol. V, No. 7, Nashville, Tenn., July, 1897. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- RULES IN THE OHIO PENITENTIARY Unknown Exact Copy of "Notice" to Confederate Prisoners in the Ohio Penitentiary. NOTICE The following rules and regulations will be observed in the treatment of the Rebel prisoners of war confined in this prison: I. ROLL CALI..-The roll will be called daily as follows: 1. After unlocking in the morning. 2. After breakfast. 3. Before dinner. 4. Before locking up. Prisoners will present themselves at roll call promptly, in proper order, and without avoidable noise. NO excuse for absence will be valid, except confinement in the dungeon or the hospital. II. LOCKING UP.-At the proper signal each prisoner will take his stand in the door of his cell, where he will remain until the guard who locks him up arrives, to whom, if requested, he will give his name in a proper manner, then go in and close his door for locking. III. LIGHTS.-No lights will be permitted in any cell after the proper hour, except by order of the warden. NO talking or noise allowed after the convicts are locked up, and no prisoner will sleep with his face covered. IV. CONDUCT.-Prisoners are strictly forbidden to indulge in certain privileges, described as follows: 1. To go into each other's cells. 2. To make avoidable noise, either in talking or otherwise. 3. To play at disallowed games. 4. To converse in the dining room. 5. To converse with convicts on any pretext or for any purpose. 6. To converse with guards, except briefly in making known their necessary wants. 7. To be insolent or insulting in the use of language. 8. To absent themselves from roll call. 9. To crowd upon the surgeon, steward, or other person while transacting business. 10. To order funds for their use to be placed in the hands of any one except the authorized agent. 11. To transact any kind of business with any person, or to receive anything, without permission from the warden. V. CORRESPONDENCE.-NO person will be permitted to write more than two letters in any week. NO letter to be of more than one page of common letter paper in length; to be without interlining or cross-lining; to be addressed to a near relative, of a strictly private nature, and subscribed by the writer's name in full. Others, except written by the permission of the warden, will be destroyed. VI. SPECIAL.-The warden may, from time to time. permit one copy of a newspaper extract or telegram to be given to the prisoners, which, after examination, will be returned by the guard to the office. A failure to make return to the guard by the prisoner will involve the withdrawal of this order. VII. GUARDS.-All guards and other persons, except those assigned or permitted by the warden to attend to this special duty, are forbidden to hold intercourse with the prisoners of war or to intrude upon the quarter of the prison in which they are confined. The guard in charge will report all persons violating this rule. VIII. The furnishing of supplies to prisoners of war, by gift or purchase, having been forbidden by the Hon. Secretary of War, none such will be delivered until further orders. NATHANIEL MERION, Warden. Office Ohio Penitentiary, Columbus, December 12, 1863
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