Part 3 (2/2)
Only eight miles now to c.u.mberland Gap, and we will get rations now. But we didn't. We descended the mountain on the southern side. No rations yet.
Well, says I, this won't do me. I am going to hunt something to eat, Bragg or no Bragg. I turned off the road and struck out through the country, but had gone but a short distance before I came across a group of soldiers clambering over something. It was Tom Tuck with a barrel of sorghum that he had captured from a good Union man. He was selling it out at five dollars a quart. I paid my five dollars, and by pus.h.i.+ng and scrouging I finally got my quart. I sat down and drank it; it was bully; it was not so good; it was not worth a cent; I was sick, and have never loved sorghum since.
Along the route it was nothing but tramp, tramp, tramp, and no sound or noise but the same inevitable, monotonous tramp, tramp, tramp, up hill and down hill, through long and dusty lanes, weary, wornout and hungry. No cheerful warble of a merry songster would ever greet our ears. It was always tramp, tramp, tramp. You might, every now and then, hear the occasional words, ”close up;” but outside of that, it was but the same tramp, tramp, tramp. I have seen soldiers fast asleep, and no doubt dreaming of home and loved ones there, as they staggered along in their places in the ranks. I know that on many a weary night's march I have slept, and slept soundly, while marching along in my proper place in the ranks of the company, stepping to the same step as the soldier in front of me did. Sometimes, when weary, broken down and worn out, some member of the regiment would start a tune, and every man would join in. John Branch was usually the leader of the choir. He would commence a beautiful tune. The words, as I remember them now, were ”Dear Paul, Just Twenty Years Ago.” After singing this piece he would commence on a lively, spirit-stirring air to the tune of ”Old Uncle Ned.” Now, reader, it has been twenty years ago since I heard it, but I can remember a part of it now. Here it is:
”There was an ancient individual whose cognomen was Uncle Edward.
He departed this life long since, long since.
He had no capillary substance on the top of his cranium, The place where the capillary substance ought to vegetate.
His digits were as long as the bamboo piscatorial implement of the Southern Mississippi.
He had no oculars to observe the beauties of nature.
He had no ossified formation to masticate his daily rations, So he had to let his daily rations pa.s.s by with impunity.”
Walker Coleman raises the tune of ”I'se a gwine to jine the rebel band, a fightin' for my home.”
Now, reader, the above is all I can now remember of that very beautiful and soul-stirring air. But the boys would wake up and step quicker and livelier for some time, and Arthur Fulghum would holloa out, ”All right; go ahead!” and then would toot! toot! as if the cars were starting- puff! puff! puff and then he would say, ”Tickets, gentlemen; tickets, gentlemen.” like he was conductor on a train of cars. This little episode would be over, and then would commence the same tramp, tramp, tramp, all night long. Step by step, step by step, we continued to plod and nod and stagger and march, tramp, tramp, tramp. After a while we would see the morning star rise in the east, and then after a while the dim gray twilight, and finally we could discover the outlines of our file leader, and after a while could make out the outlines of trees and other objects. And as it would get lighter and lighter, and day would be about to break, cuckoo, cuckoo, cuckoo, would come from Tom Tuck's rooster. [Tom carried a game rooster, that he called ”Fed” for Confederacy, all through the war in a haversack.] And then the sun would begin to shoot his slender rays athwart the eastern sky, and the boys would wake up and begin laughing and talking as if they had just risen from a good feather bed, and were perfectly refreshed and happy. We would usually stop at some branch or other about breakfast time, and all wash our hands and faces and eat breakfast, if we had any, and then commence our weary march again. If we were halted for one minute, every soldier would drop down, and resting on his knapsack, would go to sleep. Sometimes the sleeping soldiers were made to get up to let some general and his staff pa.s.s by. But whenever that was the case, the general always got a worse cursing than when Noah cursed his son Ham black and blue. I heard Jessee Ely do this once.
We march on. The scene of a few days ago comes unbidden to my mind. Tramp, tramp, tramp, the soldiers are marching. Where are many of my old friends and comrades, whose names were so familiar at every roll call, and whose familiar ”Here” is no more? They lie yonder at Perryville, unburied, on the field of battle. They lie where they fell. More than three hundred and fifty members of my regiment, the First Tennessee, numbered among the killed and wounded-one hundred and eighty-five slain on the field of battle. Who are they? Even then I had to try to think up the names of all the slain of Company H alone. Their spirits seemed to be with us on the march, but we know that their souls are with their G.o.d. Their bones, today, no doubt, bleach upon the battlefield. They left their homes, families, and loved ones a little more than one short twelve months ago, dressed in their gray uniforms, amid the applause and cheering farewells of those same friends. They lie yonder; no friendly hands ever closed their eyes in death; no kind, gentle, and loving mother was there to shed a tear over and say farewell to her darling boy; no sister's gentle touch ever wiped the death damp from off their dying brows. n.o.ble boys; brave boys! They willingly gave their lives to their country's cause. Their bodies and bones are mangled and torn by the rude missiles of war. They sleep the sleep of the brave. They have given their all to their country. We miss them from our ranks. There are no more hard marches and scant rations for them. They have accomplished all that could be required of them. They are no more; their names are soon forgotten. They are put down in the roll-book as killed. They are forgotten. We will see them no more until the last reveille on the last morning of the final resurrection. Soldiers, comrades, friends, n.o.ble boys, farewell we will meet no more on earth, but up yonder some day we will have a grand reunion.
KNOXVILLE
The first night after crossing c.u.mberland Gap-I have forgotten the date, but I know it was very early in the fall of the year; we had had no frost or cold weather, and our marches all through Kentucky had been characterized by very dry weather, it not having rained a drop on us during the whole time-about four o'clock in the morning it began to snow, and the next morning the ground was covered with a deep snow; the trees and gra.s.s and everything of the vegetable kingdom still green.
When we got back to Knoxville we were the lousiest, dirtiest, raggedest looking Rebels you ever saw. I had been shot through the hat and cartridge-box at Perryville, and had both on, and the clothing I then had on was all that I had in the world. William A. Hughes and I were walking up the street looking at the stores, etc., when we met two of the prettiest girls I ever saw. They ran forward with smiling faces, and seemed very glad to see us. I thought they were old acquaintances of Hughes, and Hughes thought they were old acquaintances of mine. We were soon laughing and talking as if we had been old friends, when one of the young ladies spoke up and said, ”Gentlemen, there is a supper for the soldiers at the Ladies' a.s.sociation rooms, and we are sent out to bring in all the soldiers we can find.” We spoke up quickly and said, ”Thank you, thank you, young ladies,” and I picked out the prettiest one and said, ”Please take my arm,” which she did, and Hughes did the same with the other one, and we went in that style down the street. I imagine we were a funny looking sight. I know one thing, I felt good all over, and as proud as a boy with his first pants, and when we got to that supper room those young ladies waited on us, and we felt as grand as kings. To you, ladies, I say, G.o.d bless you!
AH, ”SNEAK”
Almost every soldier in the army-generals, colonels, captains, as well as privates-had a nick-name; and I almost believe that had the war continued ten years, we would have forgotten our proper names. John T. Tucker was called ”Sneak,” A. S. Horsley was called ”Don Von One Horsley,” W. A. Hughes was called ”Apple Jack,” Green Rieves was called ”Devil Horse,” the surgeon of our regiment was called ”Old Snake,” Bob Brank was called ”Count,” the colonel of the Fourth was called ”Guide Post,” E. L. Lansdown was called ”Left Tenant,” some were called by the name of ”Greasy,” some ”Buzzard,” others ”Hog,” and ”Brutus,” and ”Ca.s.sius,” and ”Caesar,” ”Left Center,” and ”Bolderdust,” and ”Old Hannah;” in fact, the nick-names were singular and peculiar, and when a man got a nick-name it stuck to him like the Old Man of the Sea did to the shoulders of Sinbad, the sailor.
On our retreat the soldiers got very thirsty for tobacco (they always used the word thirsty), and they would sometimes come across an old field off which the tobacco had been cut and the suckers had re-sprouted from the old stalk, and would cut off these suckers and dry them by the fire and chew them. ”Sneak” had somehow or other got hold of a plug or two, and knowing that he would be begged for a chew, had cut it up in little bits of pieces about one-fourth of a chew. Some fellow would say, ”Sneak, please give me a chew of tobacco.” Sneak would say, ”I don't believe I have a piece left,” and then he would begin to feel in his pockets. He would pull that hand out and feel in another pocket, and then in his coat pockets, and hid away down in an odd corner of his vest pocket he would accidentally find a little chew, just big enough to make ”spit come.” Sneak had his pockets full all the time. The boys soon found out his inuendoes and subterfuges, but John would all the time appear as innocent of having tobacco as a pet lamb that has just torn down a nice vine that you were so careful in training to run over the front porch. Ah, John, don't deny it now!
I JINE THE CAVALRY
When we got to Charleston, on the Hiwa.s.see river, there we found the First Tennessee Cavalry and Ninth Battalion, both of which had been made up princ.i.p.ally in Maury county, and we knew all the boys. We had a good old-fas.h.i.+oned handshaking all around. Then I wanted to ”jine the cavalry.” Captain Asa G. Freeman had an extra horse, and I got on him and joined the cavalry for several days, but all the time some pa.s.sing cavalryman would make some jocose remark about ”Here is a webfoot who wants to jine the cavalry, and has got a bayonet on his gun and a knapsack on his back.” I felt like I had got into the wrong pen, but anyhow I got to ride all of three days. I remember that Mr. Willis B. Embry gave me a five-pound package of Kallickanick smoking tobacco, for which I was very grateful. I think he was quartermaster of the First Tennessee Cavalry, and as good a man and as clever a person as I ever knew. None knew him but to love him. I was told that he was killed by a lot of Yankee soldiers after he had surrendered to them, all the time begging for his life, asking them please not kill him. But He that noteth the sparrow's fall doeth all things well. Not one ever falls to the ground with His consent.
CHAPTER VI
MURFREESBORO
We came from Knoxville to Chattanooga, and seemed destined to make a permanent stay here. We remained several months, but soon we were on the tramp again.
From Chattanooga, Bragg's army went to Murfreesboro.
The Federal army was concentrating at Nashville. There was no rest for the weary. Marches and battles were the order of the day.
Our army stopped at Murfreesboro. Our advanced outpost was established at Lavergne. From time to time different regiments were sent forward to do picket duty. I was on picket at the time the advance was made by Rosecrans. At the time mentioned, I was standing about two hundred yards off the road, the main body of the pickets being on the Nashville and Murfreesboro turnpike, and commanded by Lieutenant Hardy Murfree, of the Rutherford Rifles.
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