Part 12 (1/2)
COURAGE SUBLIME.
In concluding these reminiscences of the Nashville campaign, a campaign so fraught with disaster to our cause, I am glad to throw over them at their close the glamour of an incident that in its display of infinite courage gilds with its glory even the gloom of defeat. In a subsequent sketch I shall have occasion to pay some tribute to the conspicuous gallantry of the color-bearer of the First Florida regiment in our last charge at Bentonville. Under the inspiration of the ”Rebel Yell” and the contagious enthusiasm and excitement of a charge men may have made reputations for courage they would not sustain when subjected to the test of ”simply standing and dying at ease.” This man, however, George Register by name, was tried in both furnaces and came out pure gold.
The incident referred to occurred at the battle of Franklin, Nov. 30, '64. The failure of a staff officer to promptly deliver Hood's order to Cheatham at Spring Hill had allowed Schofield to escape when the interposition of a single division across his front would have resulted in the capture of his army and would have ensured the success of the campaign. And now the Federal army lay at Franklin heavily entrenched while Hood, fretting over the blunder, determined to retrieve it by an a.s.sault upon their works. Forrest protested that it would be a useless sacrifice of life, would probably end in failure and offered to flank Schofield out of his position in two hours if furnished a single division of infantry to co-operate with his cavalry. Hood could not be argued out of his purpose to fight and ordered his army into line.
Cleburne rode down his lines as his division filed into position and pa.s.sing an old friend, a captain in the ranks, he noticed that he was barefooted and that his feet were bleeding. Stopping and dismounting he asked the captain to pull off his boots and then requested him to try them on his own feet. In reply to the captain's protest he said, ”I am tired wearing boots and can do without them,” and then he rode away to lead his last charge. Gen. Granbury, commanding a Texas brigade in Cleburne's division, rode out in front of his men and said, ”Boys, two hours work this evening will shorten the war two years.” Two hours later, on that short November afternoon, the very flower of Hood's army lay dead or dying in front of the Federal breastworks. Among them lay Cleburne, Granbury, Adams, Gist, Strahl and Carter, six general offices, a larger number than fell in three day's fighting at Gettysburg, or any battle field in the four years' struggle.
Under the murderous leaden hail that swept the open field over which they pa.s.sed, the First Florida Regiment was ordered to lie down to secure some immunity from the fire that was rapidly thinning their ranks. The entire regiment sank to the ground, save one of their number.
The color-bearer, unwilling to lower his flag, yet willing to show his foe how a brave man could die, refused to avail himself of the partial protection which a change in position would bring, and standing erect, calmly faced the storm of shot and sh.e.l.l; faced it unmoved, while seven of the eight color guards lying at his feet were killed or wounded; faced it unflinchingly while the staff he held in his brave right hand was three times shattered by hostile shot; faced it without a tremor while the folds of his tattered flag were thirty times rent and torn by hissing minies or shrieking sh.e.l.l; faced it calmly until the blessedness of night had come to end the carnival of death, and stood there at its close the very incarnation of courage and yet without the smell of fire on his garments or the mark of shot or sh.e.l.l on his grey-clad form.
I know not whether he still survives. I know not whether his radiant deed has found a fitting recognition save in the memory of surviving comrades. But living or dead, famous or forgotten, my hat goes off to you today, George Register, in loving admiration of a heroism that in soldierly devotion to the colors that you bore, crowns you an immortal and rises to the region of the morally sublime.
CHAPTER VII.
THE CLOSING CAMPAIGN.
A weeks' stay in the vicinity of Corinth, Miss., and orders were received for the transfer of Stewart's and Cheatham's corps to the East to aid Hardee in an effort to prevent a junction of the armies of Grant and Sherman.
AN ARCTIC RIDE.
Transportation by rail was furnished only to the sick and barefooted, who were ordered to report at Corinth at daylight, Jan. 10th. Weakened by an attack of chill and fever I joined the sick squad, which left camp at 1 a. m., tramped through the mud and rain, waded several streams and reached Corinth in the early morning with our clothing wet to our knees.
In this condition, with no opportunity to dry our drenched garments, we rode in a box car without fire on a cold winter day from 8 a. m. until 3 p. m. The car was crowded and the heating arrangements were confined to such exercise as we could take in the limited s.p.a.ce we were forced to occupy. I had never been taught to ”trip the light fantastic toe” and the figures I cut that day were more continuous than graceful. At 3 p. m. I told the Oglethorpes, who were with me, John Kirkpatrick and Will Dabney among them, I remember, that while I was willing to die in a soldierly way in battle, I did not propose to freeze to death, and suggested that in order to secure an opportunity to thaw, we stop at the next station, which chanced to be Baldwin, Miss. The motion was carried unanimously, though not by a rising vote, as we already occupied from necessity a standing position, our car having no furniture except a floor and a door. To give the reader some gauge of the condition of the railroads in that section at that stage of the war, it is only necessary to say that we had traveled only 31 miles in 7 hours. We were kindly received by a Mr. Kent, an old citizen of Baldwin, who regretted his inability to furnish us anything but shelter and fire, as he had been foraged upon by Yankees and Confederates alike until there was very little meal in the barrel or oil in the cruse and ”no prophet in all the land to bless the scanty store.” When the evening meal was ready, however, he came to our room and with an apology to my comrades for failing to include them in the invitation, he pressed the writer to share his humble fare. Whether this discrimination in my favor was due to my good looks, my winning ways or the appearance of chronic hunger in my face, has remained to this day an unsolved problem. And yet whatever may have been the right solution, it gives me pleasure through this humble record to waft back over the waste of years my earnest appreciation of his kindness to a sick and underfed Confederate.
CLEANED UP FINANCIALLY.
No train pa.s.sed next morning and we tramped down the railroad for 12 miles, stopping at Saltillo for the night. None of us were well, the weather was cold and to avoid sleeping on the damp, bare ground we began to reconnoiter for better lodging. By reason possibly of the favorable impression made by the writer on our host at Baldwin, I was made spokesman for the occasion. Knocking at the residence of a Mrs. B. I stated our condition in as impressive language as I could command and emphasized our desire to avoid the exposure of sleeping on the cold, damp ground. To this she replied that she was a widow, living there alone, that she knew nothing of us, and that while she disliked to turn off Confederate soldiers, she could not feel that it would be proper or prudent for her to entertain a company of utter strangers. ”Well, madame,” I replied, ”I appreciate your position and if you feel the slightest hesitancy, we will not insist.” ”Walk in sir,” she replied, ”You can stay.” She told me afterwards that if I had pressed my appeal she would have turned us away, but that my failure to do so convinced her that we were gentlemen. It may be as well to confess that I had antic.i.p.ated such an objection and had framed my reply to meet it.
During the evening she told us with quivering lips, of the death of her soldier boy in Virginia, of her sad mission in visiting the battle field to recover his body and lay it away in the old family burying ground, and spoke so feelingly of her attachment to our cause that on retiring to our room I remember that we entertained some fears that an offer of compensation for our entertainment might offend her. The sum total of our financial a.s.sets, as I recollect it, was a $20 Confederate bill owned by Will Dabney. On taking our leave next morning we tendered it in payment of our bill, thinking, of course, that she would decline it with thanks, but we had reckoned without our host or at least without our hostess. She accepted it with the remark that it would exactly square the account, and we were turned out on the cold charity of the world without a cent.
'Twas the last of our a.s.sets, Gone glimmering alone.
All its blue-backed companions Were wasted and gone, No bill of its kindred Nor greenback was night, Not even a ”s.h.i.+nplaster”
To spend for pie.
In justice to our kind-hearted hostess, and lest some reader should imagine that her charges were really extravagant, it is proper to say that she had given five hungry soldiers a sumptuous supper and breakfast, had lodged us on snowy feather beds and had accepted in payment what was equivalent to one dollar or less in good money. If the condition of our finances needs any explanation it may be found in the fact that our last pay day had occurred just 12 months and ten days before.
But I am spinning out these little incidents at too great length.
Resuming our march we were overtaken by our command and tramped with it to Tupelo, where we remained 12 days. On January 25th we boarded the cars for Meridian, but the train was overloaded and we traveled only 18 miles in 12 hours, not very rapid transit. In order to lighten the load two cars were detached and in one of them Lieut. Goetchius and ten of the Oglethorpes, including the writer chanced to be pa.s.sengers. After two days' tramp through the ”Prairie Lands” of Mississippi, our squad secured transportation, rejoining our command at Meridian, Jan. 29.
Thence by rail to McDowell's Landing, by boat to Demopolis, by rail to Selma and by boat to Montgomery, reaching that place 1 p. m., Feb. 1st.
The preceding night was a very cold one and as we were deck pa.s.sengers and no heating arrangements had been provided, a fire was built of fat pine on a pile of railroad iron. Frank Lamar, I remember, sat on the leeward side of the fire with the black smoke pouring into his face all night, and next day could have played the role of negro minstrel without the use of burnt cork. The writer kept his temperature above the freezing point by volunteering as an aid to the fireman in the engine room.
Leaving Montgomery Feb. 2d, we reached Columbus, Ga., late in the afternoon and on our arrival were met by a delegation of ladies, who greeted us with a speech, a song and a supper. My journal, I regret to say, records the fact that the supper was last but not least in the degree of appreciation meted out to the trio by the boys. Pa.s.sing through Macon Feb. 3d, we arrived at Midway at 2 a. m. of the 4th and remained there a day drawing clothing and blankets. Leaving the railroad we marched through Milledgeville on the 5th, but did not stop to investigate the condition of Gov. Brown's ”collard patch.” Reaching Mayfield on the 7th we boarded the cars again, lay over at Camak and arrived at Augusta on the evening of the 8th, the brigade going into camp near Hamburg and the Oglethorpes remaining with friends and relatives in the city.
A SAD HOME-COMING.