Life in Dixie during the War, 1861-1862-1863-1864-1865
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Title: Life in Dixie during the War, 1861-1862-1863-1864-1865
Author: Mary Ann Harris Gay
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Language: English
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LIFE IN DIXIE DURING THE WAR, 1861-1862-1863-1864-1865 ***
LIFE IN DIXIE DURING THE WAR.
1861-1862-1863-1864-1865.
MARY A. H. GAY.
_THE THIRD EDITION. (ENLARGED.)_
ATLANTA, GA:
CHARLES P. BYRD.
1897.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1897,
By MARY A. H. GAY,
In the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.
CONTENTS.
PAGE.
INTRODUCTORY REMARKS 9
CHAPTER I.--The Magnolia Cadets 17
CHAPTER II.--The War Record of DeKalb County 22
CHAPTER III.--Labors of Love--Musical--Decatur 36
CHAPTER IV.--Labors of Love--Knitting and Sewing, and Writing
Letters to “Our Soldiers” 42
CHAPTER V.--The Third Maryland Artillery--Some Old Songs 48
CHAPTER VI.--A Daring and Unique Chase--The Capture and
Re-capture of the Railroad Engine, “The General” 52
CHAPTER VII.--Coming Home from Camp Chase--The Faithful
Servant’s Gift--A Glimpse of Confederate Braves 58
CHAPTER VIII.--Some Social Features--Morgan’s Men Rendezvous
at Decatur--Waddell’s Artillery--Visits from the Texans--
Surgeon Haynie and His Song 72
CHAPTER IX.--Thomie’s Second Home Coming--He Leaves for the
Front--His Christian Labors in Camp--He Describes the
Battle of New Hope Church--The Great Revival in
Johnston’s Army 77
CHAPTER X.--A Visit to Dalton--The Fidelity of an Oldtime
Slave 94
CHAPTER XI.--A Perilous Trust 104
CHAPTER XII.--A Scene in an Atlanta Confederate Hospital 108
CHAPTER XIII.--Concealing Confederate Clothing--Valuables
Carried to Atlanta--Toby Taken Ill 113
CHAPTER XIV.--The Advance Guard of the Yankee Army--I am
Ordered Out--A Noble Federal 124
CHAPTER XV.--The Battle of the 22d of July, 1864--The Death
of Toby 135
CHAPTER XVI.--Everett’s Desertion 146
CHAPTER XVII.--A Visit to Confederate Lines--A Narrow Escape--
My Return--The Fall of Atlanta 156
CHAPTER XVIII.--The Ten Days’ Armistice--Going Out with the
Confederate Clothes--Scenes at Atlanta, and at Lovejoy’s
Station--The Visit to Granbury’s Brigade--The Last
Interview with Thomie 168
CHAPTER XIX.--The Return Home--From Jonesboro via Augusta--
Scenes and Incidents by the Way--The Lonely Journey from
Stone Mountain to Decatur 193
CHAPTER XX.--On the Verge of Starvation--A Worn-out Army
Horse is Found--Uncle Mack Makes a Wagon--I Make a Unique
Trip--Starvation is Warded Off--Dangers and Scenes by the
Way 207
CHAPTER XXI.--A Second Trip for Supplies--Gathering “Fodder”
from a Cane-brake, as a Preliminary--The Lonely Journey--
Changing Yankee’s Name--I Meet the Federal Raiders 226
CHAPTER XXII.--News from the Absent Brother--He Marches into
Tennessee with Hood--Extracts from His Letters written on
the Way--Two Ears of Parched Corn--The Night Burial of a
Soldier 243
CHAPTER XXIII.--An Incident of the War--Related to the Writer
by Hon. Roger Q. Mills, of Texas 251
CHAPTER XXIV.--Picking up Minie Balls Around Atlanta--
Exchanging Them for Bread 255
CHAPTER XXV.--The Decatur Women’s Struggle for Bread--Sweet
Singing in Hard Places--Pleasant Visitors--I Make a Trip
to Alabama--The News of My Brother’s Death 260
CHAPTER XXVI.--My Mother’s Death--Rev. John S. Wilson
Performs the Funeral Service 274
CHAPTER XXVII.--A Reminiscence 281
CHAPTER XXVIII.--How the Decatur Women Kept Up the Sabbath
School 289
CHAPTER XXIX.--Postal Affairs--The Postmaster, Hiram J.
Williams--A Life that was a Reality, but Reads like a
Romance 298
CHAPTER XXX.--The Tragic Death of Sallie Durham--A Sketch of
the Durham Family 302
CHAPTER XXXI.--The Death of Melville Clark 310
CHAPTER XXXII.--The Morton Family--Incidents Thrilling and
Affecting 313
CHAPTER XXXIII.--Hon. Joseph E. Brown’s Pikes and Guns 319
CHAPTER XXXIV.--The Pursuit and Capture of the Andrew’s
Raiders 325
CONFEDERATE LOVE SONG 349
CONCLUSION 351
APPENDIX 354
INTRODUCTION.
I am asked to write a few words of introduction to these reminiscences of
a lady who, in the pleasant afternoon of a life devoted to deeds of mercy
and charity, turns fondly and sympathetically to the past. But there is
nothing to be said. What word of mine could add to the interest that
inheres in this unpretentious record of a troubled and bloody period? The
chronicle speaks for itself, especially to those who remember something of
those wonderful days of war. It has the charm and the distinction of
absolute verity, a quality for which we may look in vain in more elaborate
and ambitious publications. Here indeed, is one of the sources from which
history must get its supplies, and it is informed with a simplicity which
history can never hope to attain.
We have here reproduced in these records, with a faithfulness that is
amazing, the spirit of those dark days that are no more. Tragedy shakes
hands with what seems to be trivial, and the commonplaces of every-day
life seem to move forward with the gray battalions that went forth to war.
It is a gentle, a faithful and a tender hand that guides the pen--a soul
nerved to sacrifice that tells the tale. For the rest, let the records
speak for themselves.
JOEL CHANDLER HARRIS.
PREFACE.
By way of preface to “Life in Dixie During the War,” I scarcely know what
to say. I have long felt that it was the duty of the South to bequeath to
posterity the traditions of that period; for if we do it not ourselves
they will be swallowed up in oblivion. Entertaining this opinion, I have
essayed the task of an individual effort, and hope that others may follow
my example.
No woman who has seen what I have seen, and felt what I have felt, would
be apt to write with less asperity; and yet, now that we have come back to
the United States, and mean to stay in it, let the provocation to depart
be what it may, I would not put into practice an iota of the war-time
feeling. In thus expressing myself, I am sure I represent every Christian
in my own beautiful Southland.
There was one for whom these sketches would have had a special interest.
An inspiring motive for writing them was that they would be read by my
nephew, Thomas H. Stokes, of Atlanta, the only child of the brother so
often mentioned. But, ere he had had more than a glimpse of them, he was
called away by an Inscrutable Providence, in his pure and beautiful young
manhood, as we trust to a Land of Peace more in keeping with his noble,
true, and tender heart, than earth with its sin and strife. “Blessed are
the pure in heart; for they shall see God.”
MARY A. H. GAY.
Decatur, Georgia.
INTRODUCTORY REMARKS.
THE TOCSIN OF WAR.
The tocsin of war has resounded from Mason and Dixon’s line to the Gulf of
Mexico, from the snow-crested billows of the Atlantic to the tranquil
waves of the Pacific.
War! War! War! is the battle cry of a people, who, long suffering and
patient, but now, goaded to desperation and thoroughly exasperated, are
determined, at all hazards, to protect the rights for which their
forefathers fought, bled and died; and which their own Thomas Jefferson
embodied in an instrument of writing which, for beauty of diction and
wisdom of thought, will go sounding down the corridors of time, so long as
time itself shall last--unequaled, unparalleled; and which was adopted
without a dissenting voice by the ablest convocation of men ever assembled
in national councils as their declaration of human rights and liberties.
Thus, under auspices favorable to the happy and speedy development of a
new and glorious country, commenced the government of the freest and
happiest people on earth, under the administration of George
Washington--an administration which caught the eye of the world and called
forth its admiration; and which the most censorious never had the temerity
to attack; an administration which secured for the country the alluring
title, “The land of the free and the home of the brave.” And its fame
went abroad in story and in song, and every nation on earth sought its
blessings and advantages, and it grew to be a mighty country.
Coeval with the settlement of this beautiful continent by the white man,
there came, or rather, there was brought, a race of people which needed
the fostering care as well as the strong arm of slavery to kindle the
latent spark of intellectual fire which had smoldered for centuries, in,
as President Cleveland would say, “innocuous desuetude.”
This race of people came not as pioneers in the building up of this great
nation, but as a menial race, sold into bondage by their own kith and kin,
and not to be endowed with elective franchise nor representation in its
councils. It was held in bondage alike in Massachusetts and in South
Carolina. Under the auspices of slavery, it became a powerful factor in
the building up of the staple industries of the country--the Southern
portion of it directly, the Northern portion indirectly, and it received
in return more than any other people in bondage has ever received--as a
usual thing, good wholesome food, comfortable homes and raiment, and
tender treatment in sickness. When they failed to receive these benefits,
their masters were improvident and careless alike of the comfort of their
own wives and children, and they, too, showed hard usage and neglect. This
is not said by way of apology for any treatment received at the hands of
Southern slaveholders by this vassal race. I repeat that no people held in
bondage ever received so many benefits.
Slavery, as all other institutions, had its evils, and those evils were
far greater to the slaveholder than to the slaves. Climatic and other
considerations rendered the system of slavery unprofitable in the Northern
States of this great and growing republic, and the men at the helm of
their respective governments agitated the subject of emancipation.
Having given themselves time to bring the greater number of their slaves
South and sell them, they nominally freed the others by legislative
enactment; and by this great and magnanimous action, there were so few
left that to this day, as attested by Northern tourists, a “darkey,” or a
“colored person,” is an object of curiosity and great interest.
The country, North and South, was too prosperous. The agitators could
stand it no longer. Discord and strife took the place of harmony and peace
in the halls of congress, and in the senate chamber of the United States.
Men who could in no other way acquire prominence, became conspicuous as
champions of an “oppressed and down trodden race,” and were swift to
slander the white people of the South. Our slaves were taught that murder,
rapine, arson, and every species of wickedness known in the catalogue of
crime which, in any way, could weaken, yea, destroy the South, was service
most acceptable.
The country was in the clutches of an organized mob, determined to
precipitate it into the jaws of dissolution. By way of confirming this
statement the following resolutions are reproduced.
These resolutions were adopted by a large and representative body of men
at Worcester, Massachusetts, soon after Fremont’s defeat in 1856, and
long before Governor Gist of South Carolina, and other Southern leaders,
began to take measures for a peaceable separation, rather than to be
forcibly expelled:
“_Resolved_, That the meeting of a state disunion convention, attended by
men of various parties and affinities, gives occasion for a new statement
of principles and a new platform of action.
“_Resolved_, That the conflict between this principle of liberty and this
fact of slavery has been the whole history of the nation for fifty years,
while the only result of this conflict has thus far been to strengthen
both parties, and prepare the way of a yet more desperate struggle.
“_Resolved_, That in this emergency we can expect little or nothing from
the South itself, because it, too, is sinking deeper into barbarism every
year. Nor from a supreme court which is always ready to invent new
securities for slaveholders. Nor from a president elected almost solely by
Southern votes. Nor from a senate which is permanently controlled by the
slave power. Nor from a house of representatives which, in spite of our
agitation, will be more proslavery than the present one, though the
present one has at length granted all which slavery asked. Nor from
political action as now conducted. For the Republican leaders and press
freely admitted, in public and private, that the election of Fremont was,
politically speaking, the last hope of freedom, and even could the North
cast a united vote in 1860, the South has before it four years of
annexation previous to that time.
“_Resolved_, That the fundamental difference between mere political
agitation and the action we propose is this, it requires the acquiescence
of the slave power, and the other only its opposite.
“_Resolved_, That the necessity for disunion is written in the whole
existing character and condition of the two sections of the country--in
social organizations, education, habits and laws--in the dangers of our
white citizens of Kansas and of our colored ones in Boston, in the wounds
of Charles Sumner and the laurels of his assailant--and no government on
earth was ever strong enough to hold together such opposing forces.
“_Resolved_, That this movement does not seek merely disunion, but the
more perfect union of the free States by the expulsion of the slave States
from the confederation in which they have ever been an element of discord,
danger and disgrace.
“_Resolved_, That it is not probable that the ultimate severance of the
union will be an action of deliberation or discussion, but that a long
period of deliberation and discussion must precede it, and this we meet to
begin.
“_Resolved_, That henceforward, instead of regarding it as an objection to
any system of policy that will lead to the separation of the States, we
will proclaim that to be the highest of all recommendations and the
grateful proof of statesmanship; and we will support politically and
otherwise, such men and measures as appear to tend most to this result.
“_Resolved_, That by the repeated confession of Northern and Southern
statesmen, the existence of the union is the chief guarantee of slavery,
and that the despots of the whole world and the slaves of the whole world
have everything to hope from its destruction and the rise of a free
Northern republic.
“_Resolved_, That the sooner the separation takes place the more peaceable
it will be; but that peace or war is a mere secondary consideration in
view of our present perils. Slavery must be conquered; peaceably if we
can, forcibly if we must.”
To keep before the people of the United States, North and South, the
hostility of the then controling spirit of the North towards the South,
the above resolutions cannot be repeated too often. Nor were they an
isolated example of party fanaticism. The stock and staple of the entire
republican press was slander of the Southern people; and like noxious
weeds it well nigh rooted out all that was elevating to man, and ennobling
to woman. The pulpit became a rostrum from which bitter invective of the
South flowed in Niagaran torrents; and the beautiful fields of Poesy were
made to yield an abundant crop of briar and bramble and deadly Upas.
The burden of every song, of every prayer, of every sermon, was the “poor
down-trodden slave” of the South. What wonder that seed thus constantly
and malignantly sown sprang up and bore a crop of discontent which nothing
short of “separation” from the enemy could appease. We, too, felt that
under the existing circumstances peace or war was a mere secondary
consideration in view of our perils in the union, and took measures to
withdraw from a sectional union of States that had ceased to respect State
sovereignty outside of its own borders.
The insults and taunts and the encroachments of fifty years had welded the
people of the South into a compact party organization, animated for all
substantial purposes by one sentiment and one glorious principle of
patriotism, and never was there a movement in the annals of nations that
had a more unanimous support. And when the tocsin of war resounded from
one end of the country to the other, and reverberated over hills and
through valleys, the sons and sires in the beautiful Sunny South, from the
high born and cultured gentleman in whose veins flowed the blue blood of
the cavalier, to the humblest tiller of the soil and the shepherd on the
mountain sides, buckled on the paraphernalia of warfare and reported for
duty. To arms! To arms! was the patriotic appeal of a people who had no
other redress; and I repeat with emphasis that never a people responded
with more chivalrous alacrity or more earnestness of purpose.
I was too well versed in the politics of the country, too familiar with
the underground workings of the enemy, to hesitate. I, too, enlisted in
the struggle, and in the glorious efforts to establish “home rule and
domestic felicity,” not literally in the ranks of the soldier, but in the
great army of women who were willing to toil and to suffer, and to die, if
need be, for the cause of the South.
I had but one brother, a darling young half brother, Thomas J. Stokes, who
had gone to Texas to practice his chosen profession. With all the
intensity of my ardent nature I loved this brother, and would have died
that he might live; and yet with all the perils involved, it was with a
thrill of pride that I read his long letter breathing, pulsing, with the
patriotism illustrated by our ancestry in the revolutionary struggle for
American Independence. And now this noble brother and myself, though
widely separated, enlisted in aid of the same great cause; the perpetuity
of constitutional rights. He to serve on the battle-field, and I to care
for the sick and wounded soldiers, or to labor in any capacity that would
give greatest encouragement to our cause.
Life in Dixie During the War.
CHAPTER I.
THE MAGNOLIA CADETS.
Notwithstanding the restful signification of “Alabama,” the State bearing
that name had passed the ordinance of secession, and mingled her voice
with those of other States which had previously taken steps in that
direction.
Then followed a call for a convention, having in view the election of a
President of a new Republic to take its place among the nations of the
earth, and to be known throughout the world as the Southern Confederacy.
As an intensely interested spectator I was at that convention; and will
remember, to my dying day, that grand spectacle. Yea, that was a grand and
solemn occasion--that of issuing a mandate “Let there be another nation,
and to all intents and purposes there was another nation.” In the course
of human events it requires centuries to evolve such moral courage and
sublimity of thought and action; and the proceedings of that day will
stand out in bold relief as the acme of patriotic greatness.
Ah! that scene at the capitol of the State of Alabama, when Jefferson
Davis, the chosen leader of the Southern people, took the oath of office
and pledged undying fidelity to the best interests of his own sunny land.
On that momentous occasion not a word was uttered denunciatory of the
States we were seeking to leave in their fancied superiority, and the
great concourse of people there assembled was too familiar with the
history of the times to require recapitulation of the causes of the
alienation which led by rapid ascent to the summit of discontent, and
determination to no longer submit to the domination of an enemy.
That scene being enacted as a preliminary, a call was made for Alabama’s
quota of volunteers to defend the principles enunciated and the interests
involved.
The Magnolia Cadets, under the leadership of Captain N. H. R. Dawson, of
Selma, were among the first to respond. I accompanied my cousins of
Alabama to see this company of noble, handsome young men mustered into the
military service of their country. It was a beautiful sight! Wealthy,
cultured young gentlemen voluntarily turning their backs upon the luxuries
and endearments of affluent homes, and accepting in lieu the privations
and hardships of warfare; thereby illustrating to the world that the
conflict of arms consequent upon the secession was not to be “a rich man’s
war and a poor man’s fight.”
I saw them as they stood in line to receive the elegant silken banner,
bearing the stars and bars of a new nation, made and presented to them by
Miss Ella Todd and her sister, Mrs. Dr. White, of Lexington, Kentucky, who
were introduced to the audience by Captain Dawson as the sisters of Mrs.
Abraham Lincoln, the wife of the president of the United States.
I was thus made aware that Mrs. Lincoln and her illustrious husband were
Southerners. I have since been in the small, mud-chinked log cabin in
Elizabethtown, Kentucky, in which he was born, and in which his infancy
and little boyhood were domiciled. Mrs. White had married an Alabamian,
and as his wife became a citizen of his State. Her sister, Miss Todd, was
visiting her at the enactment of the scene described, and under like
circumstances, also became a citizen of Alabama. She married the valiant
gentleman who introduced her to the public on that memorable occasion.
I have sought and obtained from Mrs. Mary Dawson Jordan, of Chattanooga,
Tennessee, a daughter of Captain Jordan, a complete record of the names of
the officers and members of this patriotic company of Alabama’s noble
sons--native and adopted--which I subjoin as an item of history that will
be read with interest by all who revere the memory of the Lost Cause and
its noble defenders.
_Muster Roll of the “Magnolia Cadets.”_
N. H. R. DAWSON, Captain.
(Enrolled for active service at Selma, Ala., on the 26th day of April,
1861. Mustered into service on the 7th day of May, 1861, at Lynchburg,
Va.)
Commanded by Col. Ben Alston of the Fourth Alabama Regiment of Volunteers.
1. N. H. R. Dawson, Captain.
1. Shortbridge, Jr., Geo. D., 1st Lieutenant.
2. McCraw, S. Newton, 2nd Lieutenant.
3. Wilson, John R. 3rd Lieutenant.
1. Waddell, Ed. R., 1st Sergeant.
2. Price, Alfred C., 2nd Sergeant.
3. Daniel, Lucian A., 3rd Sergeant.
4. Goldsby, Boykin, 4th Sergeant.
1. Bell, Bush W., 1st Corporal.
2. Garrett, Robert E., 2nd Corporal.
3. Brown, James G., 3rd Corporal.
4. Cohen, Lewis, 4th Corporal.
1. Melton, George F., Musician.
2. Marshall, Jacob, Musician.
PRIVATES.
1. Adkins, Agrippa
2. Adams, William S.
3. Avery, William C.
4. Byrd, William G.
5. Beattie, Thomas K.
6. Briggs, Charles H.
7. Bohannon, Robert B.
8. Baker, Eli W.
9. Bradley, Hugh C.
10. Cook, Thomas M.
11. Cook, James W.
12. Cook, Benson.
13. Caughtry, Joseph R.
14. Cole, George W.
15. Cleveland, George W.
16. Clevaland, Pulaski.
17. Cunningham, Frank M.
18. Coursey, William W.
19. Daniel, John R.
20. Densler, John E.
21. Donegay, James G.
22. Friday, Hilliard J.
23. Friday, James L.
24. Friday, John C.
25. Ford, Joseph H.
26. Grice, Henry F.
27. Haden, James G.
28. Harrill, Thornton R.
29. Hannon, Wm. H., Sr.
30. Hannon, Wm. H., Jr.
31. Hooks, William A.
32. Hodge, William L.
33. Jones, William.
34. Jordan, James M.
35. Jackson, Felix W.
36. King, William R.
37. Kennedy, Arch.
38. Kennedy, George D.
39. Lamson, Frank R.
40. Lane, William B.
41. Lowry, Uriah.
42. Lowry, William A.
43. Littleton, Thomas B.
44. Luske, John M.
45. Lamar, John H.
46. Mather, Thomas S.
47. Martin, James B.
48. May, Syd M.
49. May, William V.
50. Melton, Thomas J.
51. Miller, Stephen J.
52. Mimms, George A.
53. Moody, William R.
54. Mosely, Andrew B.
55. McNeal, George S.
56. McKerning, John W.
57. Overton, John B.
58. Overton, Thomas W.
59. O’Neal, William.
60. Paisley, Hugh S.
61. Pryor, John W.
62. Pryor, Robert O.
63. Peeples, Frank W.
64. Raiford, William C.
65. Reinhardt, George L.
66. Robbins, John L.
67. Rucker, Lindsay.
68. Rucker, Henry.
69. Shiner, David H.
70. Stokes, William C.
71. Stone, John W.
72. Stewett, Mayor D.
73. Turner, Daniel M.
74. Thomas, Lewis.
75. Tarver, Ben J.
76. Taylor, William E.
77. Terry, Thomas B.
78. Thompson, John S.
79. Thompson, William E.
80. Ursory, Edward G.
81. Vaughn, Turner P.
82. Wrenn, Theodore J.
83. Whallon, Daniel.
Copied from the original Muster Roll of the Magnolia Cadets, owned by
Henry R. Dawson, son of N. H. R. Dawson.
CHAPTER II.
THE WAR RECORD OF DEKALB COUNTY.
DeKalb county, Georgia, of which Decatur is the county site, was among the
first to enroll troops for Confederate service. The first volunteers from
Decatur were James L. George, Hardy Randall, L. J. Winn and Beattie
Wilson, who went with the Atlanta Greys the last of May, 1861.
The first company from DeKalb county was that of Captain John W. Fowler.
It was called the DeKalb Light Infantry, and was mustered into service in
Atlanta, as part of the 7th Georgia Volunteers, and left for Virginia on
the 1st of June, 1861. Those going from DeKalb county in this company
were: First Lieutenant, John J. Powell; Second Lieutenant, John M.
Hawkins; Third Lieutenant, James L. Wilson; First Sergeant, M. L. Brown;
Second Sergeant, D. C. Morgan; Third Sergeant, D. E. Jackson; Fourth
Sergeant, John W. Fowler, jr.; Corporals--H. H. Norman, R. F. Davis, C. W.
L. Powell; Privates--W. W. Bradbury (afterwards captain), E. M.
Chamberlain, W. W. Morgan, W. L. Herron, P. H. Pate, C. E. McCulloch,
James W. McCulloch, L. C. Powell, H. G. Woodall, J. S. Woodall, A. W.
Mashburn, V. A. Wilson, W. J. Mason, J. V. Austin, W. M. Austin, John
Eads, E. A. Davis, Dr. A. S. Mason, John W. Norman, E. L. Morton, Henry
Gentry, W. M. Cochran, J. B. Cochran, James Hunter (promoted captain), W.
W. Brimm, William Carroll, C. W. McAllister, J. O. McAllister, and many
others from the county, making it a full company.
The second company from DeKalb was the Stephens Rifles, captain, L. J.
Glenn. They went into Cobb’s Legion about August, 1861. Dr. Liddell, Frank
Herron, Norman Adams, John McCulloch, John J. McKoy, and some others, went
from Decatur in this company.
The third company was the Murphey Guards, captain, John Y. Flowers. They
came from the upper part of the county, near Doraville. This company was
named in memory of Hon. Charles Murphey, of DeKalb county, a prominent
lawyer and member of Congress, but then recently deceased. The company had
been uniformed by the people of the county, a large share being
contributed by Mr. and Mrs. Milton A. Candler, and Mr. and Mrs. Ezekiel
Mason. Mrs. Candler, whose maiden name was Eliza Murphey, the only child
of Charles Murphey, gave the banner, upon which was inscribed, “The God of
Jacob is with us.”
The Fourth Company was The Bartow Avengers, Captain William Wright, from
the lower part of the county about South River. The Fifth Company, Captain
Rankin, was from Stone Mountain. These three last mentioned companies went
into the 38th Georgia Regiment, in September, 1861, and belonged to the
Virginia Army. The Sixth Company, Captain E. L. Morton’s, entered service
the last of August, 1861, in the 36th Georgia Regiment, and was with the
Western Army under Johnston. The Seventh Company, the Fowler Guards,
Captain Clay, went into the 42nd Georgia Regiment in the early part of
1862, and was also in the Western Army.
There were several companies, mostly composed of DeKalb County men, that
were made up and went from the camp of instruction near Decatur. Moses L.
Brown was Captain of one, and L. D. Belisle of another. Besides the
companies already named, all of which went into the infantry, there were
many soldiers from DeKalb that went into the Cavalry and Artillery service
of the regular army.
In the year 1863, when Georgia was threatened by Rosecrans coming into the
State on its northern border, special troops were raised for its defence.
Major General Howell Cobb commanded the division; General Henry R. Jackson
one of the brigades. In Jackson’s Brigade, in the 10th Georgia Regiment
State Guards (Col. John J. Glenn and Lieutenant-Colonel J. N. Glenn), we
find Company A of Cavalry troops. Of this company Milton A. Candler had
command. These troops served through 1863 and 1864.
In April, 1863, Paul P. Winn, now a Presbyterian minister, then a mere
youth, went into the army in the 45th Georgia Regiment, commanded by Col.
Thomas J. Simmons. Other Decatur boys went into the service from other
sections where the war found them located. Among these were Dr. James J.
Winn, who enlisted at Clayton, Alabama, with the Barker Greys, and was in
the battle of Bull Run. After a year or two he received a surgeon’s
commission, being the youngest surgeon in the army.
John C. Kirkpatrick, just eighteen, went into the service from Augusta
with the Oglethorpe Infantry. With him were his cousin, William Dabney
(now a Presbyterian minister in Virginia), and his friend, Frank Stone.
This was in 1862, and John remained in the service until the close of the
war, having been in severe battles (for he was in Cleburne’s Division),
including that of Jonesboro. In this engagement were other Decatur boys in
other commands. Mr. John B. Swanton, but seventeen years old, was in that
battle, and says that by his side stood, when mortally wounded, Franklin
Williams, the brother of Mr. Hiram J. Williams. Says Mr. Swanton: “He was
so near me I could have touched him with my hand.” Three sons of Mrs.
Martha Morgan, and cousins of DeWitt Morgan, were all in the service,
Henry, Daniel, and Joseph Morgan. Jesse Chewning and Samuel Mann were in
the 64th Georgia.
Josiah J. Willard, the only son of Mr. Levi Willard, while a sprightly,
active youth, was near-sighted. He had a position in the commissary
department at Camp Randolph, near Decatur, and went with it to Macon, July
11th, 1864, and remained there until the place surrendered after the fall
of Richmond. He, also, is mentioned in other sketches.
There were also several companies of old men and boys who went into the
State service when the last call for troops was made by the Confederate
government.
Before the DeKalb soldiers go to meet the fortunes of war, let us recall
some incidents that preceded their departure. On the northern side of the
court-house square there stood a large building, the residence of Mr.
Ezekiel Mason. Here, day after day, a band of devoted women met to make
the uniforms for the DeKalb Light Infantry. These uniforms had been cut by
a tailor, but they were to be made by women’s hands. Among the leading and
directing spirits in this work were Mrs. Jonathan B. Wilson, Mrs. Jane
Morgan, Mrs. Ezekiel Mason, Mrs. Levi Willard, Miss Anna Davis, Mrs. James
McCulloch, and Miss Lou Fowler. The most of this sewing was done by hand.
To the DeKalb Light Infantry, the day before its departure, a beautiful
silken banner was given. The ladies of the village furnished the material.
The address of presentation was made by Miss Mollie G. Brown. In
September, of that same year, my sister was invited to present a banner to
Captain William Wright’s Company. Her modest little address was responded
to in behalf of the company by Rev. Mr. Mashburn, of the Methodist Church.
In March, 1862, there was another banner presented from the piazza of “the
Mason Corner”--this time to the Fowler Guards, by Miss Georgia Hoyle. This
banner was made by the fair hands of Miss Anna E. Davis. By this time the
spirit of independence of the outside world had begun to show itself in
the Southern-made grey jeans of the soldiers, and in the homespun dress of
Miss Hoyle.
This banner, so skillfully made by Miss Anna Davis, had a circle of white
stars upon a field of blue, and the usual bars of red and white--two broad
red bars with a white one between. The banner of this pattern was known as
the “stars and bars,” and was the first kind used by the Confederate
States. In May, 1863, the Confederate Congress adopted a National Flag,
which had a crimson field with white stars in a blue-grounded diagonal
cross, the remainder of the flag being white. But, when falling limp
around the staff, and only the white showing, it could easily be mistaken
for a flag of truce; therefore in March, 1865, the final change was made
by putting a red bar across the end of the flag.
But what of the fate of these gallant young men, going forth so full of
hope and courage, with tender and loving farewells lingering in their
hearts?
Soon, ah! so soon, some of them fell upon the crimson fields of Virginia.
James L. George (“Jimmie,” as his friends lovingly called him) was killed
in the first battle of Manassas. “Billy” Morgan died soon after the
battle, and was buried with military honors in a private cemetery near
Manassas. Two years after, his brother, De Witt Morgan, worn out in the
siege of Vicksburg, was buried on an island in Mobile Bay. At the second
battle of Manassas, James W. McCulloch and James L. Davis were both
killed. Later on W. J. Mason, William Carroll, John M. Eads, H. H. Norman,
Billy Wilson, and Norman Adams, were numbered among the slain. Among the
wounded were Henry Gentry, Mose Brown, John McCulloch, W. W. Brimm, Dave
Chandler, Riley Lawhorn, and Bill Herring.
A volume could easily be written concerning the bravery and the sufferings
of the DeKalb county troops; but I must forbear. Concerning Warren Morton,
of the 36th Georgia Regiment, who went into the service at the age of
fifteen, and suffered so severely, I will refer my readers to a sketch in
the latter part of this book. Of William M. Durham, so young, so gallant,
who enlisted in Company K., 42nd Georgia Regiment, much of interest will
be found in another chapter.
Among the Decatur members of Cobb’s Legion was Mr. John J. McKoy, who went
out in the Stephens Rifles when not more than nineteen years old. He was
in the battle of Yorktown, Seven Pines, and in the Seven Days Fight around
Richmond. Owing to illness, and to business arising from the attainment of
his majority, he came home in 1863, and, hiring a substitute when the
conscript law was passed, went to work at the Passport Office in Atlanta.
In this same year he was married to Miss Laura Williams of Decatur. Having
raised Company A., for the 64th Georgia Regiment, Mr. McKoy was with it
when it was sent to Florida, and was in the battle of Olustee or Ocean
Pond, in February 1864, where General Alfred H. Colquitt won the title of
“The Hero of Olustee.” Mr. McKoy remembers to have seen on that eventful
day, Col. George W. Scott, then of Florida, but now of Decatur. At the
battle of Olustee, Col. Scott was in command of a regiment of Cavalry. The
banner of the regiment is now in possession of his daughter, Mrs. Thomas
Cooper.
The 64th Georgia was then sent to Virginia in General Wright’s brigade. A
few days after “The Mine Explosion,” or undermining of the Confederate
works, an engagement occurred at Deep Bottom. Here, General Girardy, of
Augusta, was killed, and several hundred of the Confederates were
captured, among the number being Mr. McKoy. This was in July, 1864. He was
sent to Fort Delaware, where he remained in prison until the close of the
war. Here he spent a whole winter without a fire, and was subject to all
that Fort Delaware meant. To escape the horrors of that prison, many of
the two thousand officers there confined, took the oath not to fight
against the United States. But Mr. McKoy and thirty-four others remained
in prison, firm and loyal, even after the surrender, believing and hoping,
up to July, 1865, that the war would be carried on west of the Mississippi
river.
The soldiers who went to Virginia knew from their own experience the
scenes of Manassas, Malvern Hill, Fort Harrison, Sharpsburg,
Fredericksburg, Gettysburg and the Wilderness. Yet some of them were left
to be surrendered by Lee at Appomatox Court House. The companies which
were in the Western Army were in the leading battles of that Division, and
were equally brave and abiding in their devotion to the cause.
For many of the foregoing facts concerning the troops from DeKalb, I am
greatly indebted to Mr. Robert F. Davis, who went with DeKalb’s first
company, and who, after braving the perils of the war, came off unscathed.
He still lives near Decatur, and is an elder in the Presbyterian Church.
I greatly regret my inability, even if I had the space, to give the names
of all the soldiers who went from DeKalb, and to tell of their deeds of
bravery and endurance. It has not been intentional that many are wholly
omitted. It has been my privilege to see but one muster-roll of our county
troops--that of Company K, 38th Georgia Regiment, kindly furnished by Mr.
F. L. Hudgins, of Clarkston, a brave soldier who was in command of the
Company when Lee surrendered. This muster-roll shows that out of the 118
names, forty-six were killed (or died), and seventeen were wounded; that
its first Captain, William Wright, resigned, and that three other Captains
by promotion were all killed, _i. e._, Gustin E. Goodwin, George W. Stubbs
and R. H. Fletcher. Indeed, in nearly every instance, promotion in this
Company meant death upon the battle field. And can we wonder that both the
commissioned and the noncommissioned fell, when some of the principal
battles in which they were engaged bore such names as Cold Harbor, Malvern
Hill, Second Manassas, Sharpsburg, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville,
Winchester, Gettysburg, The Wilderness, Spottsylvania Courthouse,
Mechanicsville, Fisher’s Hill, Cedar Creek, Louise Courthouse and High
Bridge?
In memory of the dead, for the sake of the living and for the descendants
of all mentioned therein, I copy the muster-roll of this company:
_Company K., 38th Georgia Regiment_:
Captain William Wright--resigned July, 1862.
1st Lieutenant Julius J. Gober--Died July 26th, 1862.
2nd Lieutenant Gustin E. Goodwin--Promoted captain; killed August 28th,
1862.
3rd Lieutenant George W. Stubbs--Promoted captain; killed July 24th,
1864.
1st Sergeant John S. Johnston--Killed June 27th, 1862.
2nd Sergeant W. R. Henry--Promoted to 1st Lieutenant; lost a leg December
13th, 1862.
3rd Sergeant J. A. Maddox--Killed at Wilderness, May 5th, 1864.
4th Sergeant F. L. Hudgins--Promoted 1st Sergeant; wounded at Malvern
Hill; shot through the body at Gettysburg.
5th Sergeant E. H. C. Morris--Promoted 3rd Lieutenant; killed at Second
Manassas, August, 1862.
1st Corporal F. M. Gassaway--Killed at Second Manassas, August, 1862.
2nd Corporal J. M. Walker--Died in camp.
3rd Corporal W. A. Ward--Died in camp.
4th Corporal James L. Anderson--Wounded at Manassas and Spottsylvania
court house.
John H. Akers--Killed at Second Manassas, 1862.
A. W. Allman--Killed at Cedar Creek, October 19th, 1864.
John Adams--Died in camp.
Enos Adams--
Isaac W. Awtry--
W. A. Awtry--
H. V. Bayne--Disabled by gunshot wound. Still living.
Allen Brown--
Lewis Brown--
Killis Brown--
William M. Brooks--
H. M. Burdett--
J. S. Burdett--
John S. Boyd--
James E. Ball--Killed at Gettysburg, July, 1863.
W. H. Brisendine--
L. R. Bailey--Transferred to Cobb’s Legion.
John E. J. Collier--
James Collier--Died at Charlottesville, Va., 1862.
Z. J. Cowan--
J. J. Cowan--
G. G. Cook--
James E. Chandler--Killed at Sharpsburg, Md., September 17th, 1862.
W. B. Chandler--Died in camp, May 31st, 1863.
John W. Chandler--Killed at Second Manassas, August, 1862.
W. A. Childress--A physician in Atlanta.
J. H. Childers--
J. M. Dowis--Killed at Coal Harbor, June 27th, 1862.
W. H. Ellis--
John Eunis--
R. H. Fletcher--Promoted Captain; killed in 1865.
A. M. Gentry--Died at Savannah in 1862.
W. F. Goodwin--Promoted 3rd Lieutenant; killed at Gettysburg in 1863.
C. H. Goodwin--Killed at Coal Harbor.
Joseph Grogan--
J. H. Grogan--
J. D. Grogan--Killed at Sharpsburg, Maryland, September 17th, 1862.
Gideon Grogan--Killed at Sharpsburg, Maryland, September 17th, 1862.
James H. Gasaway--Disabled by gunshot.
William Gasaway--Disabled by gunshot.
John Gasaway--Discharged.
W. L. Goss--
F. L. Guess--Transferred to the 9th Georgia Artillery Battalion.
H. L. Head--
J. L. Henry--Killed at Coal Harbor, June 27th, 1862.
W. B. Heldebrand--Died recently.
H. H. Hornbuckle--Killed at Coal Harbor, June 27th, 1862.
Joshua Hammond--Killed at Sharpsburg, September 17th, 1862.
R. F. Jones--Killed at Coal Harbor.
J. W. Jones--Disabled by gunshot.
C. S. Jones--Killed in Richmond.
R. D. F. Jones--Disabled by gunshot.
J. M. Jones--
J. H. Jones--Disabled by gunshot.
James Jones--
John F. Kelley--
John H. Kelley--
James Kelley--
W. J. Little--Disabled by gunshot.
George Lee--Died in camp.
A. J. Lee--Discharged.
Wiley Manghon--
J. R. Mitchell--Killed December 13th, 1862, at Fredericksburg.
W. G. Mitchell--Disabled by gunshot.
E. J. Mitchell--
W. R. Maguire--Disabled by gunshot.
W. A. Morgan--
B. S. McClain--Died in camp.
John W. Nash--Killed December 13th, 1862, at Fredericksburg.
David N. Fair--Killed at Coal Harbor, June 27th, 1862.
W. B. Owen--
J. J. Pruett--Discharged.
John W. Phillips--Killed at Coal Harbor, June 27th, 1862.
John B. Thompson--
Will Thompson--
W. M. Richardson--Disabled at Second Manassas.
J. S. Richardson--Killed at Coal Harbor, June 27th, 1862.
D. D. Richardson--Died at Hanover Junction, 1862.
A. W. Stowers--
W. A. Smith--
J. M. Summey--Shot through at Coal Harbor.
S. J. Summey--Killed at Winchester, Va., June 13th, 1863.
James Toney--Musician.
C. W. Toney--Musician.
M. J. Tweedle--Wounded at Winchester, Va., September 19th, 1864.
S. J. Thomas--
R. L. Vaughn--Died at Savannah, Ga.
J. S. Vaughn--Wounded eight times at Coal Harbor.
W. T. Vaughn--Had both hands blown off.
J. C. Wiggins--Promoted Second Lieutenant; killed in June, 1864.
J. M. Wiggins--
R. W. Wiggins--Killed at Petersburg, Va., March 27th, 1865.
E. W. Wiggins--Killed at Sharpsburg, Maryland, September 17th, 1862.
G. W. Wiggins--
M. O. Wiggins--Disabled at Cedar Creek, October 19th, 1864.
G. W. Wade--Musician.
E. D. Wade--
F. M. Wade--
B. L. Wilson--Killed at Marie’s Heights, May 4th, 1863.
W. A. Wright--
W. R. Wood--
Amos Wheeler--Killed at Spottsylvania, May 12th, 1864.
J. H. Wilson--Killed at Gettysburg, July 1st, 1863.
Jordan Wilson--Killed at Coal Harbor, June 27th, 1862.
CHAPTER III.
LABORS OF LOVE.
Musical--Decatur.
To a woman who lives and moves and has her being in the past, an
invocation to time to “turn backward in its flight,” would seem
superfluous. The scenes of other years being ever present, it would also
seem that time, as a loving father, would linger fondly around her with
panaceas for decay, mental and physical; that her heart would never grow
old, and her person never lose the attractions of youth; but, in the
economy of Him who doeth all things well, such is not the decree regarding
aught that is mortal. And when the ravages incident to one’s career have
destroyed personal charm, and divested the mind of sparkling gem, the soul
yearns for the protection of childhood and the companionship of youth.
Scenes of the past, though dyed with “the blood of martyrs,” are ever
passing in kaleidoscopic beauty before the mind’s eye, and tones too sweet
for mortal ear are ever thrilling the heart with strange, sweet, expectant
pleasure. This train of reflection, only far more elaborate, seizes for
its guiding star, on this occasion, a scene which at the time of its
enactment was indelibly impressed upon my mind, and left living, glowing
tints, illuming my pathway through subsequent life; a scene in which
lovely girlhood, arrayed in pure white robes, lent a helping hand in the
important work of supplying our soldiers with comforts, all the more
appreciated because of the source from which emanating. With closed eyes,
I see it now and listen to its enchanting melody. To render it more
realistic than could be done by any description of mine, I subjoin a copy
of the “Programme,” the original of which I have preserved:
GRAND MUSICAL ENTERTAINMENT!
RELIEF FUND
FOR OUR SOLDIERS,
THURSDAY, MAY 15, 1862,
AT THE COURTHOUSE.
By the ladies of Decatur, Georgia, assisted by William H. Barnes, Colonel
Thomas F. Lowe, Professor Hanlon, W. A. Haynes, R. O. Haynes, Dr.
Geutebruck and Dr. Warmouth, of Atlanta.
PROGRAMME.
Part I.
1. Opening Chorus--Company.
2. Piano Duet--“March from Norma”--Miss Georgia Hoyle and Miss Missouri
Stokes.
3. Solo--“Roy Neil”--Mrs. Robert Alston.
4. Quartette--Atlanta Amateurs.
5. “Tell Me, Ye Winged Winds”--Company.
6. “Our Way Across the Sea”--Miss G. Hoyle and Professor Hanlon.
7. March--Piano Duet--Miss Laura Williams and Miss Fredonia Hoyle.
8. Solo--Professor Hanlon.
9. Comic Song--W. H. Barnes.
10. Violin Solo--Colonel Thomas F. Lowe.
11. Solo--Dr. Warmouth.
12. “When Night Comes O’er the Plain”--Miss M. Stokes and Professor
Hanlon.
13. “The Mother’s Farewell”--Mrs. Maggie Benedict.
Part II.
1. Chorus--“Away to the Prairie”--Company.
2. Piano Solo--Miss G. Hoyle.
3. Song--Atlanta Amateurs.
4. Coquette Polka--Misses Hoyle and Stokes.
5. Chorus--“Let us Live with a Hope”--Company.
6. “Mountain Bugle”--Miss M. Stokes and Company.
7. “Mazurka des Traineaux”--Piano Duet--Misses Hoyle and Stokes.
8. Shiloh Retreat--Violin--Colonel Thomas F. Lowe.
Concluding with the Battle Song: “Cheer, Boys, Cheer”--W. H. Barnes.
Tickets, 50c. Children and Servants, half price.
Doors open 7:30 o’clock. Commence at 8:15 o’clock.
Atlanta Intelligencer Power Print.
Musical--Atlanta.
The citizens of Decatur were always invited to entertainments, social,
literary, and musical, in Atlanta, that had in view the interest, pleasure
or comfort of our soldiers; therefore the invitation accompanying the
following programme received ready response:
TWELFTH MUSICAL SOIREE
--of the--
ATLANTA AMATEURS,
Monday evening, June 24, 1861,
For the Benefit of
ATLANTA VOLUNTEERS,
Captain Woddail,
and the
CONFEDERATE CONTINENTALS,
Captain Seago,
Who Are Going to Defend Our Land.
Let all attend and pay a parting tribute to our brave
soldiers.
PROGRAMME.
Part I.
1. We Come Again--(Original)--Company.
2. Dreams--(A Reverie)--Miss J. E. Whitney.
3. Violin Solo--(Hash)--Colonel Thomas F. Lowe.
4. “Not for Gold or Precious Stones”--Miss R. J. Hale.
5. Yankee Doodle--According to W. A. Haynes.
6. Dixie Variations--Mrs. W. T. Farrar.
7. “Two Merry Alpine Maids”--Misses M. F. and J. E. Whitney.
8. “When I Saw Sweet Nellie Home”--Misses Sasseen and Judson.
9. “Root Hog or Die”--W. H. Barnes.
Instrumental Trio, “La Fille du Regiment”--Messrs. Schoen and Heindl.
Vermicelli, (Variations)--W. H. Barnes and Openheimer.
Part II.
1. “Our Southern Land”--C. P. Haynes and Company.
2. “Through Meadows Green”--Miss M. F. Whitney.[1]
3. Solo--Thomas D. Wright.
4. “Home, Sweet Home”--Miss R. J. Hale.
5. Violin Exemplification--Col. Thomas F. Lowe.
6. “Happy Days of Yore”--Mrs. Hibler.
7. Quartette--(original)--Misses Whitney, Messrs. Barnes and Haynes.
8. “Rocked in the Cradle of the Deep”--Prof. Hanlon. Encore--Ballad.
9. “I Come, I Come”--Misses Sasseen, Westmoreland and Sims.
The whole to conclude with the grand original.
TABLEAU,
(In Two Parts).
The Women and Children of Dixie Rejoicing Over the Success of the
Confederate Banner.
Scene 1. The Children of Dixie.
Scene 2. The Women--The Soldiers--Our Flag--Brilliant Illumination.
Doors open at half past 7 o’clock. Curtain will rise at half past 8
o’clock.
Tickets, Fifty Cents. Ushers will be on hand to seat audience.
W. H. BARNES, Manager.
CHAPTER IV.
LABORS OF LOVE.
Knitting and Sewing, and Writing Letters to “Our Soldiers.”
A patriotic co-operation between the citizens of Decatur and Atlanta soon
sprang up, and in that, as in all things else, a social and friendly
interchange of thought and feeling and deed existed; and we were never so
pleased as when aiding each other in the preparation of clothing and
edibles for “our soldiers,” or in some way contributing to their comfort.
Many of us who had never learned to sew became expert handlers of the
needle, and vied with each other in producing well-made garments; and I
became a veritable knitting machine. Besides the discharge of many duties
incident to the times and tending to useful results, I knitted a sock a
day, long and large, and not coarse, many days in succession. At the
midnight hour the weird click of knitting needles chasing each other round
and round in the formation of these useful garments for the nether limbs
of “our boys,” was no unusual sound; and tears and orisons blended with
woof and warp and melancholy sighs. For at that dark hour, when other
sounds were shut out, we dared to listen with bated breath to “the still,
small voice” that whispered in no unmistakable language suggestions which
would have been rebuked in the glare of the noonday sun.
No mother nor sister nor wife nor aunt of a Confederate soldier, need be
told what were the depressing suggestions of that “still, small voice” on
divers occasions.
When the knitting of a dozen pairs of socks was completed, they were
washed, ironed and neatly folded by one of our faithful negro women, and I
then resumed the work of preparing them for their destination. Each pair
formed a distinct package. Usually a pretty necktie, a pair of gloves, a
handkerchief and letter, deposited in one of the socks, enlarged the
package. When all was ready, a card bearing the name of the giver, and a
request to “inquire within,” was tacked on to each package. And then these
twelve packages were formed into a bundle, and addressed to an officer in
command of some company chosen to be the recipient of the contents.
I will give a glimpse of the interior of my letters to our boys. These
letters were written for their spiritual edification, their mental
improvement and their amusement.
“Never saw I the righteous forsaken.”
“Full many a gem of purest ray serene,
The dark unfathomed caves of ocean bear;
Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,
And waste its sweetness on the desert air.”
P. S.--“Apples are good but peaches are better;
If you love me, you will write me a letter.”--M.
“Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth.”
“If in the early morn of life,
You give yourself to God,
He’ll stand by you ’mid earthly strife,
And spare the chast’ning rod.”--
P. S.--“Roses are red and violets blue,
Sugar is sweet and so are you.”--M.
“Love thy neighbor as thyself.”
“May every joy that earth can give
Around thee brightly shine;
Remote from sorrow may you live,
And all of heaven be thine.”--
P. S.--Remember me when this you see,
Though many miles apart we be.--M
“Love worketh no ill to his neighbor; therefore love is the fulfillment of
the law.”
“This above all--to thine own self be true,
And it must follow as night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any one.”
P. S.--“Sure as the vine twines round the stump,
You are my darling sugar lump.”--M.
“The night is far spent, the day is at hand; let us, therefore, cast off
the works of darkness and let us put on the armour of light.”
“As for my life, it is but short,
When I shall be no more;
To part with life I am content,
As any heretofore.
Therefore, good people, all take heed,
This warning take by me--
According to the lives you lead,
Rewarded you shall be.”
P. S.--“My pen is bad, my ink is pale,
My love for you shall never fail.”--M.
“Blessed are the peacemakers; for they shall be called the children of
God.”
“The harp that once through Tara’s halls
The soul of music shed,
Now hangs as mute on Tara’s wall,
As if that soul were fled.
So sleeps the pride of former days,
So glory’s thrill is o’er;
And hearts that once beat high for praise
Now feel that pulse no more.
No more to chiefs and ladies bright
The harp of Tara swells;
The chord alone that breaks at night
Its tale of ruin tells.
Thus Freedom, now so seldom wakes,
The only throb she gives
Is when some heart indignant breaks
To show that still she lives.”--
P. S.--“My love for you will ever flow,
Like water down a cotton row.”--M
“The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof; the world and they that
dwell therein.
“For He hath founded it upon the seas, and established it upon the floods.
“Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord, or who shall stand in his
holy place?
“He that hath clean hands and a pure heart; who hath not lifted up his
soul unto vanity nor sworn deceitfully.”
“Know thyself, presume not God to scan.
The proper study of mankind is man.”
P. S.--“Round as the ring that has no end,
Is my love for you, my own sweet friend.”--M.
“God is love.”
“Poor soul, the centre of my sinful earth,
Fooled by those rebel powers that there array,
Why dost thou pine within and suffer dearth,
Painting thy outward walls so costly gay?
Why so large cost, having so short a lease,
Dost thou upon thy fading mansion spend?
Shall worms, inheritors of this excess,
Eat up thy charge? Is this thy body’s end?”
P. S.--“If you love me as I love you,
No knife can cut our love in two.”--M.
“But this I say, He that soweth sparingly shall reap also sparingly; and
he which soweth bountifully, shall reap also bountifully. Every man
according as he purposeth in his heart, so let him give, not grudgingly,
or of necessity; for God loveth a cheerful giver.”
“Before Jehovah’s awful throne
Ye nations bow with sacred joy;
Know that the Lord is God alone;
He can create and He destroy.”
P. S.--“Above, below, in ocean, earth and skies,
Nothing’s so pretty as your blue eyes.”--M.
“I am come a light into the world, that whosoever believeth on Me should
not abide in darkness.”
“And neither the angels in heaven above,
Nor the demons down under the sea,
Can ever dissever my soul from the soul
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee.”
P. S.--“Remember me! Remember me!
When this you see--Remember me!”--M.
“The Lord shall command the blessing upon thee in the storehouses, and in
all that thou settest thine hand unto.”
“Lives of great men all remind us,
We can make our lives sublime,
And departing, leave behind us,
Footprints on the sands of Time.”
P. S.--“Remember well and bear in mind,
A pretty girl’s not hard to find;
But when you find one nice and Gay
Hold on to her both night and day.”--M.
“He that covereth his sins shall not prosper; but whoso confesseth and
forsaketh them shall have mercy.”
“I’d give my life to know thy art,
Sweet, simple, and divine;
I’d give this world to melt one heart,
As thou hast melted mine.”--Mary.
P. S.--“As the earth trots round the sun,
My love for you will ever run.”--M.
CHAPTER V.
THE THIRD MARYLAND ARTILLERY.
Some Old Songs.
At some time in 1863, it was my privilege to meet a gallant band of men
whose faith in the justice of our cause was so strong that they were
constrained to turn their faces Southward and imperil their lives in its
defence. These men represented the highest type of manhood in Maryland.
Sickness entered their camp, and the good ladies of Decatur insisted upon
providing the comforts of home for the sick and wounded. Those to whom it
was my privilege to minister belonged to the Third Maryland Artillery,
under command of Captain John B. Rowan.[2]
Among them was one whose appreciation of kindness shown him ripened into
an undying friendship, Captain W. L. Ritter, a devoted Christian
gentleman, and now an elder in Doctor LeFevre’s Church, Baltimore.
His fondness for that beautiful Southern song, by James R. Randall,
entitled “Maryland, My Maryland!” was truly pathetic.
I subjoin the words to stir up the souls of our people by way of
remembrance.
MARYLAND, MY MARYLAND.
The despot’s heel is on thy shore,
Maryland, My Maryland!
His touch is on thy temple door,
Maryland, My Maryland.
Avenge the patriotic gore,
That flowed the streets of Baltimore,
And be the battle-queen of yore,
Maryland, My Maryland.
Hark to a wand’ring son’s appeal,
Maryland, My Maryland!
My mother state, to thee I kneel,
Maryland, My Maryland!
For life and death, for woe and weal,
Thy peerless chivalry reveal,
And gird thy beauteous limbs with steel,
Maryland, My Maryland.
Thou wilt not cower in the dust,
Maryland, My Maryland!
Thy beaming sword shall never rust,
Maryland, My Maryland.
Remember Carroll’s sacred trust,
Remember Howard’s warlike thrust,
And all thy slumberers with the just,
Maryland, My Maryland.
Come, ’tis the red dawn of the day,
Maryland, My Maryland!
Come with thy panoplied array,
Maryland, My Maryland.
With Ringold’s spirit for the fray,
With Watson’s blood at Monterey,
With fearless Lowe and dashing May;
Maryland, My Maryland.
Dear Mother! burst thy tyrant’s chain,
Maryland, My Maryland!
Virginia should not call in vain,
Maryland, My Maryland.
She meets her sisters on the plain,
“Sic Semper,” ’tis the proud refrain
That baffles minions back again,
Maryland, My Maryland.
Come! for thy shield is bright and strong,
Maryland, My Maryland!
Come! for thy dalliance does thee wrong,
Maryland, My Maryland.
Come to thy own heroic throng,
That stalks with liberty along,
And give a new Key to thy song,
Maryland, My Maryland.
I see the blush upon thy cheek,
Maryland, My Maryland!
But thou wast ever bravely meek,
Maryland, My Maryland.
But, lo! there surges forth a shriek,
From hill to hill, from creek to creek,
Potomac calls to Chesapeake,
Maryland, My Maryland.
Thou wilt not yield the vandal toll,
Maryland, My Maryland!
Thou wilt not crook to his control,
Maryland, My Maryland.
Better the fire upon thee roll,
Better the shot, the blade, the bowl,
Than crucifixion of the soul,
Maryland, My Maryland.
I hear the distant thunder hum,
Maryland, My Maryland!
The Old Line bugle, fife and drum,
Maryland, My Maryland.
She is not dead, nor deaf, nor dumb--
Huzza! she spurns the Northern scum;
She breathes! She burns! She’ll come, she’ll come!
Maryland, My Maryland.
An additional verse as sung by Mrs. Jessie Clark, of Crisp’s Co., Friday
night, Sept. 12th, 1862.
Hark! tis the cannon’s deaf’ning roar,
Maryland, My Maryland!
Old Stonewall’s on thy hallow’d shore,
Maryland, My Maryland.
Methinks I hear the loud huzza
Ring through the streets of Baltimore--
Slaves no longer--free once more
Maryland, My Maryland.
There were other songs sung in those days. Some of the most popular were
“Bonnie Blue Flag,” “Dixie,” “Bob Roebuck is my Soldier Boy,” “Who will
Care for Mother Now?” “Her Bright Smile Haunts me Still,” “Let me Kiss Him
for his Mother,” “All Quiet Along the Potomac To-Night,” “Rock me to
Sleep, Mother,” “When I Saw Sweet Nellie Home,” “Just Before the Battle,
Mother.” In a collection of old music, now never played, there lie before
me copies of these songs. They were published in various Southern cities
on paper not firm and smooth, but rather thin and coarse, but quite
presentable. What memories these songs awake! Where, oh where, are those
who sang them over thirty years ago! Who of the singers are now living?
How many have gone to the Eternal Shore?
CHAPTER VI.
A DARING AND UNIQUE CHASE.
The Capture and Re-capture of the Railroad Engine, “The General.”
In the early spring of 1862, there occurred an episode of the war which,
up to that date, was the most exciting that had happened in our immediate
section. The story has often been told; but instead of relying upon my
memory, I will condense from the written statement of Mr. Anthony Murphy,
of Atlanta, Georgia, who was one of the principal actors in the chase.
Mr. Murphy begins his narrative by saying: “On Saturday morning, April
12th, 1862, about 4 o’clock, I went aboard a passenger train that started
then for Chattanooga, Tennessee. My business that day was to examine an
engine that furnished power to cut wood and pump water for the locomotives
at Allatoona, a station forty miles from Atlanta. As foreman of machine
and motive power, it became my duty to go that morning. This train was in
charge of Engineer Jeff Cain, and Conductor W. A. Fuller. It was known as
a freight and passenger train. The train arrived in Marietta, twenty miles
from Atlanta, shortly after daylight. I stepped from the coach and noticed
a number of men getting on the car forward of the one I rode in. They were
dressed like citizens from the country, and I supposed they were
volunteers for the army, going to Big Shanty, now known as Kennesaw, a
station about eighteen miles from Marietta, where troops were organized
and forwarded to the Confederate army in Virginia and other points. At
this station the train stopped for breakfast, and, as the engineer,
conductor, myself and other passengers went to get our meals, no one was
left in charge of the locomotive. I had about finished, when I heard a
noise as if steam were escaping. Looking through a window I saw the cars
move, saw the engineer and fireman at the table, and said to them: ‘Some
one is moving your engine.’ By this time I was at the front door, and saw
that the train was divided and passing out of sight.”
Mr. Murphy, the conductor, and the engineer then held a brief
consultation. He asked about the men who got on at Marietta (who
afterwards proved to be a Federal raiding party, Andrews and his men), and
remarked: “They were the men who took the engine and three cars.” At the
time he thought they were Confederate deserters, who would run the engine
as far as it would have steam to run, and then abandon it. Mr. Murphy and
his two comrades concluded that it was their duty to proceed after them. A
Mr. Kendrick, connected with the railroad, coming up, they requested him
to go on horseback to Marietta, the nearest telegraph station, and
communicate with the superintendent at Atlanta, while they “put out on
foot after a locomotive under steam.” Knowing they would reach a squad of
track-hands somewhere on the line, they had some hope, and they did, in a
few miles, meet a car and hands near Moon’s Station, about two miles from
Big Shanty. They pressed the car, and two hands to propel it, which
propelling was done by poles pressed against the ties or ground, and not
by a crank. Soon they reached a pile of cross-ties on the track, and found
the telegraph wire cut. Clearing off the ties, they pressed on until they
reached Acworth Station, six miles from Big Shanty. There they learned
that the train they were pursuing had stopped some distance from the
depot, and having been carefully examined by its engineer, had moved off
at a rapid rate. This satisfied the pursuers that the capturers of the
engine “meant something more than deserters would attempt;” and then they
“thought of enemies from the Federal army.” Says the narrator: “We moved
on to Allatoona. At this place we received two old guns, one for Fuller,
and one for the writer. I really did not know how long they had been
loaded, nor do I yet, for we never fired them. These were the only arms on
our engine during our chase. Two citizens went along from here, which made
about seven men on our little pole-car. As we proceeded toward Etowah, we
moved rapidly, being down grade, when suddenly we beheld an open place in
the track. A piece of rail had been taken up by the raiders. Having no
brake, we could not hold our car in check, and plunged into this gap,
turning over with all hands except Fuller and myself, who jumped before
the car left the track. The little car was put on again, and the poling
man sent back to the next track-gang to have repairs made for following
trains.”
Arriving at Etowah, the pursuers found the engine “Yonah,” used by the
Cooper Iron Company, and pressed it into service. They got an open car,
and stocked it with rails, spikes and tools, and moved on to Cartersville.
Passing on to Rogers’ Station, they learned that the raiders had stopped
there for wood and water, telling Mr. Rogers that they were under military
orders, and that the engine crew proper were coming on behind. At Kingston
the raiders had told that they were carrying ammunition to General
Beauregard, on the line of the Memphis and Charleston Railroad, near
Huntsville, Alabama. At this point the “Yonah” was sent back to Etowah,
and the supply car of the pursuers coupled to the engine “New York.” But
at Kingston the Rome Railroad connects with the Western & Atlantic road,
and the Rome engine and train were in the way. Instead of clearing the
track for the “New York,” the crowd at the Kingston depot, having learned
the news, took possession of the Rome engine and some cars attached, and
pulled out for the chase, which compelled Mr. Murphy and his friends to
abandon their outfit and run to get on the same train. A few miles were
made, when they found a pile of cross-ties on the rails, and the telegraph
wires cut. Clearing the track they moved on, when they encountered another
gap. Here Messrs. Murphy and Fuller, believing that they would meet the
engine “Texas” with a freight train, left the obstructed train and pressed
on again on foot, advising the crowd to return, which they did. The
pursuers met the “Texas” two miles from Adairsville, and, motioning the
engineer to stop, they went aboard and turned him back. At Adairsville
they learned that Andrews had not been long gone. Says the narrator:
“About three miles from Calhoun we came in sight for the first time of the
captured engine, and three freight cars. They had stopped to remove
another rail, and were in the act of trying to get it out when we came in
sight. * * * As we reached them, they cut loose one car and started again.
We coupled this car to our engine, and moved after them. * * * From Resaca
to Tilton the road was very crooked, and we had to move cautiously. The
distance between us was short. * * * I feared ambushing by
Andrews--reversing the engine and starting it back under an open throttle
valve. * * * To prevent us closing in on them, the end of the box car was
broken out, and from this they threw cross-ties on the track to check our
speed and probably derail us. * * * I had a long bar fastened to the brake
wheel of the tender to give power so that four men could use it to help
check and stop the engine suddenly. I also stood by the reverse lever to
aid the engineer to reverse his engine, which he had to do many times to
avoid the cross-ties.
“Passing through and beyond Tilton, we again came in sight. At this point
the road has a straight stretch of over a mile. A short distance from
Tilton and just as we rounded the curve, ‘The General’ with the raiders
was rounding another curve, leaving the straight line, giving us a fine
view for some distance across the angle. * * * The fastest run was made at
this point. * * * I imagine now, as I write this, I see the two great
locomotives with their human freight speeding on, one trying to escape,
the other endeavoring to overtake, and if such had happened none might
have been left to give the particulars of that exciting and daring
undertaking. The chances of battle were certainly against us if Andrews
had attempted fight.”
Just beyond Dalton the pursuers found the telegraph wire cut. On reaching
the “tunnel,” they were satisfied that Andrews was short of wood, or the
tunnel would not have been so clear of smoke. Passing through the tunnel
they kept on, and beyond Ringgold, about two miles, the captors left “The
General” and made for the woods. The pursuers were in sight of them. Mr.
Fuller and others started after the raiders. Mr. Murphy went on the engine
to examine the cause of the stop. He found no wood in the furnace, but
plenty of water in the boiler. Says Mr. Murphy: “I took charge of the
engine, ‘General,’ had it placed on the side-track, and waited for the
first train from Chattanooga to Atlanta. I reached Ringgold about dark. I
went aboard, and reaching Dalton, the first telegraph station, I sent the
first news of our chase and re-capture of the ‘General’ to Atlanta.”
CHAPTER VII.
Coming Home from Camp Chase--The Faithful Servant’s Gift--A Glimpse of
Confederate Braves.
“A letter from Marse Thomie,” said our mail carrier, Toby, as he got in
speaking distance on his return from the post office.
“What makes you think so?” I said, excitedly.
“I know his hand-write, and this is it,” selecting a letter from a large
package and handing it to me. The very first glimpse of the superscription
assured me of his confident assertion.
The letter was addressed to our mother, and bore a United States postage
stamp, and the beloved signature of her only son, Thomas J. Stokes. A
thrill of gratitude and joy filled our hearts too full for utterance, as
we read:
“MY DEAR MOTHER: I have learned that the soldiers of the 10th Texas
Infantry will be exchanged for the United States troops very soon, perhaps
to-morrow; and then, what happiness will be mine! I can scarcely wait its
realization. A visit home, a mother’s embrace and kiss, the heart-felt
manifestations of the love of two sisters, and the joy and glad expression
of faithful servants. I may bring several friends with me, whom I know you
will welcome, both for my sake and theirs--they are valiant defenders of
the cause we love. Adieu, dear mother, and sisters, until I see you at
home, ‘home, sweet home.’”
“Thomie is coming home!” “Thomie Stokes is coming home!” was the glad
announcement of mother, sisters, and friends; and the servants took up the
intelligence, and told everybody that Marse Thomie was coming home, and
was going to bring some soldiers with him.
Another day dawned and love’s labor commenced in earnest. Doors were
opened, and rooms ventilated: bed-clothing aired and sunned, and dusting
brushes and brooms in willing hands removed every particle of that much
dreaded material of which man in all his glory, or ignominy, was created.
Furniture and picture frames were polished and artistically arranged. And
we beheld the work of the first day, and it was good.
When another day dawned we were up with the lark, and his matin notes
found responsive melody in our hearts, the sweet refrain of which was,
“Thomie is coming”--the soldier son and brother. Light bread and rolls,
rusks and pies, cakes, etc., etc., were baked, and sweetmeats prepared,
and another day’s work was ended and pronounced satisfactory.
The third day, for a generous bonus, “Uncle Mack’s” services were secured,
and a fine pig was slaughtered and prepared for the oven, and also a
couple of young hens, and many other luxuries too numerous to mention.
When all was ready for the feast of thanksgiving for the return of the
loved one, the waiting seemed interminable. There was pathos in every
look, tone, and act of our mother--the lingering look at the calendar,
the frequent glance at the clock, told that the days were counted, yea,
that the hours were numbered. At length the weary waiting ended, and the
joyous meeting came of mother and son, of sisters and brother, after a
separation of four years of health and sickness, of joy and anguish, of
hope and fear.
As we stood upon the platform of the Decatur depot, and saw him step from
the train, which we had been told by telegram would bring him to us, our
hearts were filled with consternation and pity, and tears unbidden coursed
down our cheeks, as we looked upon the brave and gallant brother, who had
now given three years of his early manhood to a cause rendered dear by
inheritance and the highest principles of patriotism, and, in doing so,
had himself become a physical wreck. He was lean to emaciation, and in his
pale face was not a suggestion of the ruddy color he had carried away. A
constant cough, which he tried in vain to repress, betrayed the deep
inroads which prison life had made upon his system; and in this respect he
represented his friends--in describing his appearance, we leave nothing
untold about theirs. In war-worn pants and faded grey coats, they
presented a spectacle never to be forgotten.
Joy and grief contended for the supremacy. We did not realize that even a
brief period of good nursing and feeding would work a great change in the
physical being of men just out of the prison pens of the frigid North, and
wept to think that disease, apparently so deeply rooted, could not be
cured, and that they were restored to us but to die. Perceiving our grief
and divining the cause, our Thomie took us, our mother first, into his
arms and kissed us, and said in his old-time way, “I’ll be all right
soon.”
And Toby and Telitha, the house servants, came in for their share of
kindly greeting.
Thomie then introduced us to Captain Lauderdale, Captain Formwalt, and
Lieutenant McMurray, his Texas friends and comrades in arms. Our cordial,
heart-felt welcome was appreciated by this trio of gentlemen, and to this
day we receive from them messages of abiding friendship. Captain
Lauderdale was one of the most perfect gentlemen I ever saw--tall,
graceful, erect, and finely formed. His face, of Grecian mould, was
faultless; and his hair, black as a raven’s plumage, and interspersed with
grey, would have adorned the head of a king. His bearing was dignified and
yet affable, and so polished and easy in manner as to invite most friendly
intercourse.
Captain Formwalt was also a fine specimen of manhood--free and easy, gay
and rollicking. He seemed to think his mission on earth was to bring
cheerfulness and glee into every household he entered.
Lieutenant McMurray was unlike either of his friends. Apparently cold,
apathetic and reserved, he repelled all advances tending to cordial
relations, until well acquainted, after which he was metamorphosed into a
kind and genial gentleman.
Thomie, dear Thomie, was a boy again, and while our guests were refreshing
themselves preparatory to dinner, he was going all over the house, for
every nook and corner was endeared by association. He opened the piano,
and running his fingers over the keys with the grace and ease of his
boyhood, he played accompaniments to his favorite songs, “Home Again,” and
“Way Down Upon the Suwanee River,” trying to sing, but prevented by the
irrepressible coughing. Then, with nervous hand, he essayed “When this
Cruel War is Over.” Turning away from the piano, he went to the library
and handled with tender care the books he had read in boyhood.
Shakespeare, Milton, Byron and Moore possessed no interest for him now;
and Blackstone and Chitty were equally ignored. The books his mother and
sister read to him in his childhood were, as if by intuition, selected,
and fondly conned and handled. His own name was written in them, and his
tearful eyes lingered long and lovingly upon these reminders of boyhood’s
happy hours. With a sigh he left the library, and espying Toby, who kept
where he could see as much as possible of “Marse Thomie,” he called the
boy and held an encouraging little conversation with him.
Dinner being ready, our mother led the way to the dining room. Our guests
having taken the seats assigned them, Thomie took his near his mother--his
boyhood’s seat at table. By request, Captain Lauderdale asked the
blessing. And, oh, what a blessing he invoked upon the “dear ones, who,
with loving hands, prepared this feast for the son and brother of the
household, and for his friends in peace and comrades in war.” Pleasant
conversation ensued, and all enjoyed the repast. But the gentlemen seemed
to us to eat very little, and, in reply to our expression of
disappointment, they explained the importance of limiting themselves for
several days in this respect.
As there was no trunk to send for, and no valise to carry, we rightly
surmised that the clothing of these good men was limited to the apparel in
which they were clad, and it was decided by my mother and myself that I
should go to Atlanta and get material for a suit of clothes for Thomie,
and good warm underclothing for them all. Arrived at Atlanta, I was
irresistibly led by that mystic power, which has often controlled for good
results the acts of man, to go to Dr. Taylor’s drug store. Here I found
King, our faithful negro man, as busy as a bee, labeling and packing
medicine for shipment. I approached him and said:
“King, Thomie has come.”
“Marse Thomie?”
“Yes.”
“Thank God,” he said, with fervor.
When I was about leaving the store, he said:
“Miss Mary, just wait a minute, please, and I will get something that I
want you to take to Marse Thomie, and tell him I don’t want him to be hurt
with me for sending it to him. I just send it because I love him--me and
him was boys together, you know, and I always thought he ought to ’er took
me with him to the war.”
“What is it, King?”
“Just a little article I got in trade, Miss Mary,” was all the
satisfaction he vouchsafed.
When he handed it to me, knowing by the sense of touch that it was a
package of dry goods, I took it to Mrs. O’Connor’s millinery
establishment, and asked the privilege of opening it there. Imagine my
astonishment and delight, when I beheld a pattern of fine grey cassimere.
I felt of it, and held it up between my eyes and the light. There was
nothing shoddy about it. It was indeed a piece of fine cassimere, finer
and better than anything I could have procured in Atlanta at that time.
The circumstance was suggestive of Elijah and the ravens, and I thanked
God for the gift so opportune, and lost no time in returning to the drug
store, and thanking King, the raven employed by the Lord to clothe one of
His little ones. Nor did I lose any time in adding to the package other
articles of necessity, flannel and the best Georgia-made homespun I could
procure, and was then ready to take the return train to Decatur. Thomie
was deeply touched by the opportune gift, and said that King was a great
boy, and that he must see him.
After supper I clandestinely left the house, and ran around to Todd
McAllister’s and begged him to take the job of making the suit. He agreed
to cut the coat, vest and pantaloons by measure, and for that purpose went
home with me, shears and tape measure in hand. Having finished this
important part of the job, he told me he could not make the suit himself,
but he thought if I would “talk right pretty to the old lady,” she would
do it. Next morning I lost no time in “talking pretty” to the old lady,
and, having secured her promise to undertake the work, it was soon in her
hands. With the help of faithful, efficient women, and I suspect of her
husband, too, the job was executed surprisingly soon. In the meantime the
making of flannel garments, and homespun shirts with bosoms made of linen
pillow-cases, was progressing with remarkable celerity.
When all was finished, and Thomie was arrayed in his new suit, which set
admirably well notwithstanding the room allowed for increasing dimensions,
which we doubted not under good treatment he would attain--King Solomon,
in purple and fine linen, was not looked upon with more admiration than
was he by his loving mother and sisters. His cough had in a measure
yielded to remedies, and his cheeks bore the tinge of better blood.
Good Mr. Levi Willard, his wife and children, had already been to see
Thomie and the strangers within our gates, and many others had sent kind
messages and substantial tokens of regard. And the young people of
Decatur, young ladies and little boys, were planning to give him a
surprise party. And among these loving attentions was a visit from King,
the faithful.
The flowers bloomed prettier, the birds sang sweeter, because of their
presence; but time waits for no man, and we were admonished by low
conversations and suggestive looks that these men, officers in the army of
the Confederacy, were planning their departure.
Many amusing incidents, as well as those of a horrible character, were
told of their prison life in Camp Chase. To illustrate the patriotism of
Southern men, Colonel Deshler, as a prisoner of war, figured
conspicuously; and many anecdotes, ludicrous and pathetic, quaint and
original, revealed the deep devotion of his love for the South. In one of
these word-paintings, he was represented as sitting on his legs, darning
the seat of his pantaloons, when a feminine curiosity seeker came along.
When she perceived his occupation, she said with a leer that would have
done credit to Lucifer:
“You rebels find it pretty hard work to keep your gray duds in order,
don’t you?”
Without looking at her, he whistled in musical cadence the contempt he
felt for her and her ilk; and the imprecations, he would not have
expressed in words, were so distinct and well modulated as to leave no
doubt as to their meaning.
The time had come for the nature of the low-toned conversations referred
to, to be revealed, and Thomie was chosen to make the revelation. Planning
to have mother and sisters present, he discussed the duties of patriotism,
and the odium men brought upon themselves by not discharging those duties.
Making the matter personal, he referred to himself and friends, to the
great pleasure and personal benefit derived from a week’s sojourn at home;
of the love for us that would ever linger in their hearts; of the pleasant
memories that would nerve them in future conflicts; and in conclusion told
us that to-morrow they would leave us to join their command at Tullahoma,
where the decimated regiment was to stay until its numbers were
sufficiently recruited for service.
Instead of yielding to grief, we repressed every evidence of it, and spoke
only words of encouragement to these noble men who had never shirked a
duty, or sought bomb-proof positions in the army of the Confederacy. After
this interview, Thomie abandoned himself to cheerfulness, to almost boyish
gaiety. He kept very close to his mother. She had grown old so rapidly
since the troubles began, that she needed all the support that could be
given her in this ordeal. This he perceived without seeming to do so, and
left nothing within his power undone for her encouragement. He even
discussed with perfect equanimity the probability, yea, the more than
probability, of his getting killed in battle; for, said he, “he that
taketh up the sword, by the sword shall he perish.” And, he added,
“strong, irrepressible convictions constrained me to enter the army in
defense of mother, home, and country. My vote was cast for the secession
of my state from the union of states which existed only in name, and I
would not have accepted any position tendered me which would have secured
me from the dangers involved by that step. I was willing to give my life
if need be, for the cause which should be dear to every Southern heart.”
Every one present responded to these noble sentiments, for were we not
soldiers, too, working for the same noble cause, and aiding and abetting
those who fought its battles?
Before retiring to our rooms, Captain Lauderdale, as usual, led in prayer,
fervent, deep and soul supporting, more for our mother and ourselves than
for himself and his comrades in their perilous positions. And dear Thomie,
whom I had never heard pray since his cradle invocation,
“Now I lay me down to sleep,
I pray the Lord my soul to keep,”
finished in words thrilling and beautiful. The effect was electrical.
Tears and sobs were no longer repressed, and all found relief from long
pent-up feelings. O, the blessedness of tears!
Morning came, clear as crystal, and cool and exhilarating. The household
were up at early dawn. A strong decoction of coffee was prepared, and
fresh cream toast and boiled eggs, meat relishes being served cold.
Knapsacks--there were knapsacks now--were packed, and blankets rolled and
buckled in straps, and our ebony Confederates, Toby and Telitha, stood
ready to convey them to the depot. In order to meet the morning train at
seven o’clock we started, but the services of Toby and Telitha were not
accepted. The gentlemen said it would never do for soldiers to start off
to report for service with negroes carrying their knapsacks and blankets.
They had no muskets to shoulder, for of these they had been divested at
Arkansas Post, months ago, when captured by the enemy.
Lieutenant McMurray, who was in feeble health, announced himself unable to
report for duty, and remained with us several weeks longer.
The parting at the depot did not betray the grief, almost without earthly
hope, that was rankling in our hearts, and the “good-bye’s” and “God bless
you’s” were uttered with a composure we little thought at our command.
As the time of his departure had drawn near, Thomie had sought
opportunities to tell me much of the young girl in Texas, who had healed
the lacerations of his youthful heart, and won the admiration of his
manhood, and whom he had made his wife. Upon her devotion he dwelt with
peculiar pathos and gratitude; and he concluded these conversations with
the request that under any and all circumstances I would be a sister to
her. On one occasion we were standing near the piano, and, when we ceased
to talk, Thomie opened it, and in tones that came from the heart, and that
were tremulous with emotion, he sang, “When this Cruel War is Over.”
Why sings the swan its sweetest notes,
When life is near its close?
Since writing the foregoing, I have had access to a journal kept during
the war by my half sister, Missouri Stokes, in which are the following
entries of historic value: “On the 11th of January, 1868, Arkansas Post,
the fort where Thomie was stationed, fell into the hands of Yankees.
General Churchhill’s whole command, numbering about four thousand, were
captured, a few being killed and wounded. We knew that Thomie, if alive,
must be a prisoner, but could hear no tidings from him. Our suspense
continued until the latter part of March, when ma received a letter from
our loved one, written at Camp Chase (military prison), Ohio, February
10th. This letter she forwarded to me, and I received it March 21st, with
heart-felt emotions of gratitude to Him who had preserved his life. A few
weeks afterwards another letter came, saying he expected to be exchanged
in a few days, and then for several weeks we heard no more.”
From this journal I learn that the date of Thomie’s arrival was May 16th,
1863. My sister wrote of him: “He seemed much changed, although only four
years and a half had elapsed since we parted. He looked older, thinner,
and more careworn, and gray hairs are sprinkled among his dark brown
curls. His health had been poor in the army, and then, when he left Camp
Chase, he, as well as the other prisoners, was stripped by the Yankees of
nearly all his warm clothing. He left the prison in April, and was
exchanged at City Point. How strange the dealings of Providence. Truly was
he led by a way he knew not. He went out to Texas by way of the West, and
returned home from the East. God be thanked for preserving his life, when
so many of his comrades have died. He is a miracle of mercy. After their
capture, they were put on boats from which Yankee small-pox patients had
been taken. Some died of small-pox, but Thomie has had varioloid and so
escaped. He was crowded on a boat with twenty-two hundred, and scarcely
had standing room. Many died on the passage up the river, one poor fellow
with his head in Thomie’s lap. May he never go through similar scenes
again!”
From this same journal I take the following, written after Missouri’s
return to the school she was teaching in Bartow county:
“Sabbath morning, June 14th. Went to Cartersville to church. Some time
elapsed before preaching commenced. A soldier came in, sat down rather
behind me, then, rising, approached me. _It was Thomie._ I soon found (for
we did talk in church) that he had an order to join Kirby Smith, with a
recommendation from Bragg that he be allowed to recruit for his regiment.
Fortunately there was a vacant seat in the carriage, so he went out home
with us. Monday 15th, Thomie left. I rode with him a little beyond the
school-house, then took my books and basket, and with one kiss, and, on my
part, a tearful good-bye, we parted. As I walked slowly back, I felt so
lonely. He had been with me just long enough for me to realize a brother’s
kind protection, and now he’s torn away, and I’m again alone. I turned and
looked. He was driving slowly along--he turned a corner and was hidden
from my view. Shall I see him no more? Or shall we meet again? God only
knows. After a fit of weeping, and one earnest prayer for him, I turned my
steps to my little school.”
And thus our brother went back to Texas, and gladly, too, for was not his
Mary there?
Of Thomie’s recall to join his command at Dalton; of his arrival at home
the next February, on his way to “the front;” of his participation in the
hard-fought battles that contested the way to Atlanta; and of his untimely
death at the fatal battle of Franklin, Tennessee, I may speak hereafter.
Even in the spring and summer of 1863, the shadows began to deepen, and to
hearts less sanguine than mine, affairs were assuming a gloomy aspect. I
notice in this same journal from which I have quoted the foregoing
extracts, the following:
“Our fallen braves, how numerous! Among our generals, Zollicoffer, Ben
McCulloch, Albert Sidney Johnston, and the saintly, dauntless Stonewall
Jackson, are numbered with the dead; while scarcely a household in our
land does not mourn the loss of a brave husband and father, son or
brother.”
CHAPTER VIII.
SOME SOCIAL FEATURES.
Morgan’s Men Rendezvous near Decatur--Waddell’s Artillery--Visits from the
Texans--Surgeon Haynie and his Song.
In the winter of 1864 there seems to have been a lull of hostilities
between the armies at “the front.” Morgan’s men were rendezvousing near
Decatur. Their brave and dashing chief had been captured, but had made his
escape from the Ohio penitentiary, and was daily expected. Some artillery
companies were camping near, among them Waddell’s. There was also a
conscript camp within a mile or two; so it is not to be wondered at that
the young ladies of Decatur availed themselves in a quiet way of the
social enjoyment the times afforded, and that there were little gatherings
at private houses at which “Morgan’s men” and the other soldiers were
frequently represented.
Our brother was absent in Texas, where he had been assigned to duty, but
my sister was at home, and many an hour’s entertainment her music gave
that winter to the soldiers and to the young people of Decatur. My
mother’s hospitality was proverbial, and much of our time these wintry
months was spent in entertaining our soldier guests, and in ministering to
the sick in the Atlanta hospitals, and in the camps and temporary
hospitals about Decatur.
So near were we now to “the front” (about a hundred miles distant), that
several of my brother’s Texas comrades obtained furloughs and came to see
us. Among these were Lieutenants Prendergast and Jewell, Captain Leonard
and Lieutenant Collins, Captain Bennett and Lieutenant Donathan. They
usually had substantial boots made while here, by Smith, the Decatur boot
and shoe maker, which cost less than those they could have bought in
Atlanta. We received some very pleasant calls from Morgan’s men and
Waddell’s Artillery. Among the latter we have always remembered a young
man from Alabama, James Duncan Calhoun, of remarkable intellectual
ability, refreshing candor and refinement of manner. Ever since the war
Mr. Calhoun has devoted himself to journalism. Among the former we recall
Lieutenant Adams, Messrs. Gill, Dupries, Clinkinbeard, Steele, Miller,
Fortune, Rowland, Baker, and Dr. Lewis. These gentlemen were courteous and
intelligent, and evidently came of excellent Kentucky and Tennessee
families. One evening several of these gentlemen had taken tea with us,
and after supper the number of our guests was augmented by the coming of
Dr. Ruth, of Kentucky, and Dr. H. B. Haynie, surgeon of the 14th Tennessee
Cavalry. Dr. Haynie was an elderly, gray-haired man, of fine presence, and
with the courtly manners of the old school. On being unanimously
requested, he sang us a song entitled: “The Wailings at Fort Delaware,”
which he had composed when an inmate of that wretched prison. As one of
the gentlemen remarked, “there is more truth than poetry in it;” yet there
are in it some indications of poetic genius, and Dr. Haynie sang it with
fine effect.
“THE WAILINGS AT FORT DELAWARE.”
By B. H. HAYNIE, Surgeon 14th Tennessee Cavalry (Morgan’s Division).
Oh! here we are confined at Fort Delaware,
With nothing to drink but a little lager beer,
Infested by vermin as much as we can bear;
Oh Jeff, can’t you help us to get away from here?
CHORUS--
And it’s home, dearest home, the place I ought to be,
Home, sweet home, way down in Tennessee,
Where the ash and the oak and the bonny willow tree,
Are all growing green way down in Tennessee.
The Island itself will do well enough,
But the flat-footed Dutch are filthy and rough,
Oh! take us away from the vandal clan,
Down into Dixie among the gentlemen.
CHORUS--And its home, dearest home, etc.
Spoiled beef and bad soup is our daily fare,
And to complain is more than any dare;
They will buck us and gag us, and cast us in a cell,
There to bear the anguish and torments of hell.
CHORUS--
The den for our eating is anything but clean,
And the filth upon the tables is plainly to be seen,
And the smell of putrefaction rises on the air,
“To fill out the bill” of our daily fare.
CHORUS--
[3]“The sick are well treated,” as Southern surgeons say,
“And the losses by death are scarcely four per day;”
It’s diarrhœa mixture for scurvy and small-pox,
And every other disease of Pandora’s box!
CHORUS--
Oh! look at the graveyard on the Jersey shore,
At the hundreds and the thousands who’ll return no more;
Oh! could they come back to testify
Against the lying devils, and live to see them die!
CHORUS--
[3]“Our kindness to prisoners you cannot deny,
For we have the proof at hand upon which you can rely;
It’s no Dutch falsehood, nor a Yankee trick,
But from Southern surgeons who daily see the sick.”
CHORUS--
Our chaplain, whose heart was filled with heavenly joys,
Asked leave to pray and preach to Southern boys;
“Oh, no!” says the General, “you are not the man,
You are a Southern rebel, the vilest of your clan!”
CHORUS--
Oh! speak out, young soldier, and let your country hear,
All about your treatment at Fort Delaware;
How they worked you in their wagons when weary and sad,
With only half rations, when plenty they had.
CHORUS--
The barracks were crowded to an overflow,
Without a single comfort on the soldier to bestow;
Oh, there they stood shivering in hopeless despair,
With insufficient diet or clothing to wear!
CHORUS--
The mother stood weeping in sorrows of woe,
Mingling her tears with the waters that flow;
Her son was expiring at Fort Delaware,
Which could have been avoided with prudence and care.
CHORUS--
Oh! take off my fetters and let me go free,
To roam o’er the mountains of old Tennessee;
To bathe in her waters and breathe her balmy air,
And look upon her daughters so lovely and fair.
CHORUS--
Then, cheer up, my brave boys, your country will be free,
Your battles will be fought by Generals Bragg and Lee;
And the Yankees will fly with trembling and fear,
And we’ll return to our wives and sweethearts so dear.
CHORUS--
And it’s home, dearest home, the place where I ought to be,
Home, sweet home way down in Tennessee,
Where the ash and the oak, and the bonny willow tree,
Are all growing green way down in Tennessee.
CHAPTER IX.
THOMIE’S SECOND HOME COMING.
He Leaves for “The Front”--His Christian Labors in Camp--He Describes the
Battle of New Hope Church--The Great Revival in Johnston’s Army.
Early one morning in the February of the winter just referred to (that of
1864), as my sister lay awake, she heard some one step upon the portico
and knock. As Toby opened the door, she heard him exclaim: “Why howd’y,
Marse Thomie!” Her first thought was, “now he is back just in time to be
in the battle!” for a resumption of hostilities was daily looked for near
Dalton. We were all greatly surprised at Thomie’s arrival on this side of
the Mississippi, as only a few days before we had received a letter from
him, written, it is true, so long as the November before, saying he had
been assigned to duty out in Texas by General Henry McCulloch. But the
consolidation of the regiments in Granbury’s brigade having been broken
up, he had been ordered back to join his old command. He had left
Marshall, Texas, the 28th of January, having made the trip in one month,
and having walked four hundred miles of the way. Under the circumstances,
we were both glad and sorrowful at his return. After a stay of three days,
he left us for “the front.” In the early morning of February 29th, we went
with him to the depot, the last time we four were ever together. Parting
from him was a bitter trial to our mother, who wept silently as we walked
back to the desolate home, no longer gladdened by the sunny presence of
the only son and brother. Perhaps nothing will give a more graphic
impression of some phases of army life at this time, nor a clearer insight
into our brother’s character, than a few extracts from his letters written
at this period to his sister Missouri, and preserved by her to this day:
“Dalton, Ga., March 15th, 1864.--* * * Our regiment takes its old
organization as the 10th Texas, and Colonel Young has been dispatched to
Texas to gather all the balance, under an order from the war department.
We are now in Dalton doing provost duty (our regiment), which is a very
unpleasant duty. It is my business to examine all papers whenever the cars
arrive, and it is very disagreeable to have to arrest persons who haven’t
proper papers. The regulations about the town are very strict. No one
under a brigadier-general can pass without approval papers. My guard
arrested General Johnston himself, day before yesterday. Not knowing him
they wouldn’t take his word for it, but demanded his papers. The old
General, very good-humoredly showed them some orders he had issued
himself, and, being satisfied, they let him pass. He took it
good-humoredly, while little colonels and majors become very indignant and
wrathy under such circumstances. From which we learn, first, the want of
good common sense, and, secondly, that a great man is an humble man, and
does not look with contempt upon his inferiors in rank, whatsoever that
rank may be.
“There is a very interesting meeting in progress here. I get to go every
other night. I have seen several baptized since I have been here. There
are in attendance every evening from six to seven hundred soldiers. There
are many who go to the anxious seat. Three made a profession of religion
night before last. I am going to-night. There seems to be a deep interest
taken, and God grant the good work may go on until the whole army may be
made to feel where they stand before their Maker. Write soon.
Your affectionate brother,
TOM STOKES.”
From another letter we take the following:
“Near Dalton, April 5th, 1864.--We have had for some weeks back very
unsettled weather, which has rendered it very disagreeable, though we
haven’t suffered; we have an old tent which affords a good deal of
protection from the weather. It has also interfered some with our
meetings, though there is preaching nearly every night that there is not
rain. Brother Hughes came up and preached for us last Friday night and
seemed to give general satisfaction. He was plain and practical, which is
the only kind of preaching that does good in the army. He promised to come
back again. I like him very much. Another old brother, named Campbell,
whom I heard when I was a boy, preached for us on Sabbath evening. There
was much feeling, and at the close of the services he invited mourners to
the anxious seat, and I shall never forget that blessed half-hour that
followed; from every part of that great congregation they came, many with
streaming eyes; and, as they gave that old patriarch their hands, asked
that God’s people would pray for them. Yes, men who never shrank in battle
from any responsibility, came forward weeping. Such is the power of the
Gospel of Christ when preached in its purity. Oh, that all ministers of
Christ could, or would, realize the great responsibility resting upon them
as His ambassadors.
“Sabbath night we had services again, and also last night, both well
attended, and to-night, weather permitting, I will preach. God help me and
give me grace from on high, that I may be enabled, as an humble instrument
in His hands, to speak the truth as it is in Jesus, for ‘none but Jesus
can do helpless sinners good.’ I preached last Sabbath was two weeks ago
to a large and attentive congregation. There seemed to be much
seriousness, and although much embarrassed, yet I tried, under God, to
feel that I was but in the discharge of my duty; and may I ever be found
battling for my Savior. Yes, my sister, I had rather be an humble follower
of Christ than to wear the crown of a monarch. Remember me at all times at
a Throne of Grace, that my life may be spared to become a useful minister
of Christ.
“Since my return we have established a prayer-meeting in our company, or,
rather, a kind of family service, every night after roll call. There is
one other company which has prayer every night. Captain F. is very
zealous. There are four in our company who pray in public--one sergeant, a
private, Captain F. and myself. We take it time about. We have cleared up
a space, fixed a stand and seats, and have a regular preaching place. I
have never seen such a spirit as there is now in the army. Religion is
the theme. Everywhere, you hear around the camp-fires at night the sweet
songs of Zion. This spirit pervades the whole army. God is doing a
glorious work, and I believe it is but the beautiful prelude to peace. I
feel confident that if the enemy should attempt to advance, that God will
fight our battles for us, and the boastful foe be scattered and severely
rebuked.
“I witnessed a scene the other evening, which did my heart good--the
baptism of three men in the creek near the encampment. To see those hardy
soldiers taking up their cross and following their Master in His
ordinance, being buried with Him in baptism, was indeed a beautiful sight.
I really believe, Missouri, that there is more religion now in the army
than among the thousands of skulkers, exempts and speculators at home.
There are but few now but who will talk freely with you upon the subject
of their soul’s salvation. What a change, what a change! when one year ago
card playing and profane language seemed to be the order of the day. Now,
what is the cause of this change? Manifestly the working of God’s spirit.
He has chastened His people, and this manifestation of His love seems to
be an earnest of the good things in store for us in not a far away future.
‘Whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom He
receiveth.’ Let all the people at home now, in unison with the army,
humbly bow, acknowledge the afflicting hand of the Almighty, ask Him to
remove the curse upon His own terms, and soon we will hear, so far as our
Nation is concerned, ‘Glory to God in the highest, on earth peace, good
will toward men!’
“I received the articles ma sent by Brother Hughes, which were much
relished on the top of the coarse fare of the army. * * * Write me often.
God bless you in your labors to do good.
Your affectionate brother,
T. J. STOKES.”
From another of those time-stained, but precious letters, we cull the
following, under the heading of:
“In Camp, Near Dalton, Ga., April 18, 1864.--* * * The good work still
goes on here. Thirty-one men were baptized at the creek below our brigade
yesterday, and I have heard from several other brigades in which the
proportion is equally large (though the thirty-one were not all members of
this brigade). Taking the proportion in the whole army as heard from (and
I have only heard from a part of one corps), there must have been baptized
yesterday 150 persons--maybe 200. This revival spirit is not confined to a
part only, but pervades the whole army. * * * * Brother Hughes was with us
the other night, but left again the next morning. The old man seemed to
have much more influence in the army than young men. I have preached twice
since writing to you, and the Spirit seemed to be with me. The second
sermon was upon the crucifixion of Christ: text in the 53d chapter of
Isaiah: ‘He was wounded for our transgressions and bruised for our
iniquities.’ It was the first time in my life, that is, in public
speaking, that my feelings got so much the mastery of me as to make me
weep like a child. In the conclusion I asked all who felt an interest in
the prayers of God’s people to come to the anxious seat. Many presented
themselves, and I could hear many among them, with sobs and groans,
imploring God to have mercy upon them; and I think the Lord did have mercy
upon them, for when we opened the door of the church six united with us.
Every Sabbath you may see the multitude wending their way to the creek to
see the solemn ordinance typical of the death, burial and resurrection of
our Savior. Strange to say that a large number of those joining the
pedo-Baptist branches prefer being immersed; though in the preaching you
cannot tell to which denomination a man belongs. This is as it should be;
Christ and Him crucified should be the theme. It is time enough, I think,
after one is converted, to choose his church rule of faith.
“If this state of things should continue for any considerable length of
time, we will have in the Army of Tennessee an army of believers. Does the
history of the world record anywhere the like? Even Cromwell’s time sinks
into insignificance. A revival so vast in its proportions, and under all
the difficulties attending camp life, the bad weather this spring, and
innumerable difficulties, is certainly an earnest of better, brighter
times not far in the future.”
To the believer in Jesus, we feel sure that these extracts concerning this
remarkable work of grace, will prove of deep interest; so we make no
apologies for quoting in continuation the following from another of those
letters of our soldier brother, to whom the conquests of the cross were
the sweetest of all themes:
“Near Dalton, April 28th, 1864.--My Dear Sister: I should have written
sooner but have been very much engaged, and when not engaged have felt
more like resting than writing, and, to add to this, Sister Mary very
agreeably surprised me by coming up on last Saturday. She left on Tuesday
morning for home. While she was at Dalton, I went down on each day and
remained until evening. I fear ma and sister are too much concerned about
me, and therefore render themselves unhappy. Would that they could trust
God calmly for the issue. And I fear, too, that they deny themselves of
many comforts, that they may furnish me with what I could do (as many have
to do) without.
* * * * *
“The great unexampled revival is fast increasing in interest. I have just
returned from the creek, where I saw thirty-three buried with Christ in
baptism, acknowledging there before two thousand persons that they were
not ashamed to follow Jesus in His ordinance. My soul was made happy in
witnessing the solemn scene. In that vast audience everything was as quiet
and respectful as in a village chapel; and, by the way, I have seen
village congregations who might come here and learn to behave. General
Lowry baptized about thirteen of them who were from his brigade. He is a
Christian, a soldier and a zealous preacher, and his influence is great.
It was truly a beautiful sight to see a general baptizing his men. He
preaches for our brigade next Sabbath. I preached for General Polk’s
brigade night before last, and we had a very interesting meeting. They
have just begun there, yet I had a congregation of some 400. At the
conclusion of the services, I invited those who desired an interest in our
prayers to manifest their desire by coming to the altar. A goodly number
presented themselves, and we prayed with them. I shall preach for them
again very soon. The revival in our brigade has continued now for four
weeks, nearly, and many have found peace with their Savior. If we could
remain stationary a few weeks longer, I believe the greater portion of the
army would be converted. This is all the doings of the Lord, and is surely
the earnest of the great deliverance in store for us. It is the belief of
many, that this is the ‘beginning of the end.’ From all parts of the army
the glad tidings comes that a great revival is in progress. I wish I had
time to write to you at length. One instance of the power of His spirit: A
lieutenant of our regiment, and heretofore very wild, became interested,
and for nearly three weeks seemed groaning in agony. The other day he came
around to see me, and, with a face beaming with love, told me he had found
Christ, and that his only regret now was that he had not been a Christian
all his life. It is growing dark. I must close. More anon.
Affectionately,
YOUR BROTHER.”
We take up the next letter in the order of time. It is numbered 25. The
envelope is of brown wrapping paper, but neatly made, and has a blue
Confederate 10 cent postage stamp. It is addressed to my sister, who was
then teaching at Corinth, Heard county, Georgia. It is dated:
“Near Dalton, May 5th, 1864.” After speaking of having to take charge
early the next morning of the brigade picket guard, Thomie goes on to say:
“The sun’s most down, but I think I can fill these little pages before
dark. Captain F., coming in at this time, tells me a dispatch has just
been received to the effect that the Yankees are advancing in the
direction of Tunnel Hill, but they have made so many feints in that
direction lately that we have become used to them, so don’t become uneasy.
“The great revival is going on with widening and deepening interest. Last
Sabbath I saw eighty-three immersed at the creek below our brigade. Four
were sprinkled at the stand before going down to the creek, and two down
there, making an aggregate within this vicinity of eighty-nine, while the
same proportion, I suppose, are turning to God in other parts of the army,
making the grand aggregate of many hundreds. Yesterday I saw sixty-five
more baptized, forty more who were to have been there failing to come
because of an order to be ready to move at any moment. They belong to a
more distant brigade. * * If we do not move before Monday, Sabbath will be
a day long to be remembered--‘the water will,’ indeed, ‘be troubled.’
Should we remain three weeks longer, the glad tidings may go forth that
the Army of Tennessee is the army of the Lord. But He knoweth best what is
for our good, and if He sees proper can so order His providence as to keep
us here. His will be done.”
The next letter is addressed to me, but was sent to my sister at my
request, and is dated “Allatoona Mountains, Near Night, May 22nd.” He
writes:
“Oh, it grieved my very soul when coming through the beautiful Oothcaloga
valley, to think of the sad fate which awaited it when the foul invader
should occupy that ‘vale of beauty.’ We formed line of battle at the
creek, at the old Eads place; our brigade was to the left as you go up to
Mr. Law’s old place on the hill, where we stayed once when pa was sick.
Right here, with a thousand dear recollections of by-gone days crowding my
mind, in the valley of my boyhood, I felt as if I could hurl a host back.
We fought them and whipped them, until, being-flanked, we were compelled
to fall back. We fought them again at Cass Station, driving them in our
front, but, as before, and for the same reason, we were compelled to
retreat.
* * * * *
“As I am requested to hold prayer-meeting this evening at sunset, I must
close.”
Thomie’s next letter in this collection is addressed to his sister
Missouri, who had returned home, and is headed, simply, “Army of
Tennessee, May 31st.” It is written in a round, legible, but somewhat
delicate hand, and gives no evidence of nervousness or hurry. To those
fond of war history, it will be of special interest:
“Our brigade, in fact our division, is in a more quiet place now than
since the commencement of this campaign. We were ordered from the
battlefield on Sunday morning to go and take position in supporting
distance of the left wing of the army, where we arrived about the middle
of the forenoon, and remained there until yesterday evening, when our
division was ordered back in rear of the left centre, where we are now.
Contrary to all expectations, we have remained here perfectly quiet, there
being no heavy demonstration by the enemy on either wing. We were very
tired, and this rest has been a great help to us; for being a reserve and
flanking division, we have had to trot from one end of the wing of the
army to the other, and support other troops.
* * * * *
“Well, perhaps you would like to hear something from me of the battle of
New Hope Church, on Friday evening, 27th inst. We had been, since the day
before, supporting some other troops about the centre of the right wing,
when, I suppose about 2 o’clock, we were hurried off to the extreme right
to meet a heavy force of the enemy trying to turn our right. A few minutes
later the whole army might now have been in the vicinity of Atlanta, but,
as it was, we arrived in the nick of time, for before we were properly
formed the enemy were firing into us rapidly. We fronted to them, however,
and then commenced one of the hottest engagements, so far, of this
campaign. We had no support, and just one single line against a whole
corps of the enemy, and a lieutenant of the 19th Arkansas, wounded and
captured by them, and subsequently retaken by our brigade, stated that
another corps of the enemy came up about sundown. The fighting of our men,
to those who admire warfare, was magnificent. You could see a pleasant
smile playing upon the countenances of many of the men, as they would cry
out to the Yankees, ‘Come on, we are demoralized!’
“One little incident right here, so characteristic of the man. Major
Kennard (of whom I have told you often, lately promoted), was, as usual,
encouraging the men by his battle-cry of, ‘Put your trust in God, men, for
He is with us,’ but concluding to talk to the Yankees awhile, sang out to
them, ‘Come on, we are demoralized,’ when the Major was pretty severely
wounded in the head, though not seriously; raising himself up, he said:
“‘Boys, I told them a lie, and I believe that is the reason I got shot.’
“The fighting was very close and desperate, and lasted until after dark.
About 11 o’clock at night, three regiments of our brigade charged the
enemy, our regiment among them. We went over ravines, rocks, almost
precipices, running the enemy entirely off the field. We captured many
prisoners, and all of their dead and many of their wounded fell into our
hands. This charge was a desperate and reckless thing, and if the enemy
had made any resistance they could have cut us all to pieces. I hurt my
leg slightly in falling down a cliff of rocks, and when we started back to
our original line of battle I thought I would go back alone and pick my
way; so I bore off to the left, got lost, and completely bewildered
between two armies. I copy from my journal:
“‘Here I was, alone in the darkness of midnight, with the wounded, the
dying, the dead. What an hour of horror! I hope never again to experience
such. I am not superstitious, but the great excitement of seven hours of
fierce conflict, ending with a bold, and I might say reckless, charge--for
we knew not what was in our front--and then left entirely alone, causes a
mental and physical depression that for one to fully appreciate he must be
surrounded by the same circumstances. My feelings in battle were nothing
to compare to this hour. After going first one way and then another, and
not bettering my case, I heard some one slipping along in the bushes. I
commanded him to halt, and inquired what regiment he belonged to, and was
answered, ‘15th Wisconsin,’ so I took Mr. Wisconsin in, and ordered him to
march before me--a nice pickle for me then, had a prisoner and did not
know where to go. Moved on, however, and finally heard some more men
walking, hailed them, for I had become desperate, and was answered,
‘Mississippians.’ Oh, how glad I was! The moon at this time was just
rising, and, casting her pale silvery rays through the dense woods, made
every tree and shrub look like a spectre. I saw a tall, muscular Federal
lying dead and the moonlight shining in his face. His eyes were open and
seemed to be riveted on me. I could not help but shudder. I soon found my
regiment, and ‘Richard was himself again.’
“I went out again to see if I could do anything for their wounded. Soon
found one with his leg shot through, whom I told we would take care of.
Another, shot in the head, was crying out continually; ‘Oh, my God! oh, my
God!!’ I asked him if we could do anything for him, but he replied that it
would be of no use. I told him God would have mercy upon him, but his mind
seemed to be wandering. I could not have him taken care of that night,
and, poor fellow, there he lay all night.
“The next morning I had the privilege of walking over the whole ground,
and such a scene! Here lay the wounded, the dying, and the dead, hundreds
upon hundreds, in every conceivable position; some with contorted
features, showing the agony of death, others as if quietly sleeping. I
noticed some soft beardless faces which ill comported with the savage
warfare in which they had been engaged. Hundreds of letters from mothers,
sisters, and friends were found upon them, and ambrotypes, taken singly
and in groups. Though they had been my enemies, my heart bled at the
sickening scene. The wounded nearly all expressed themselves tired of the
war.
“For the numbers engaged upon our side, it is said to be the greatest
slaughter of the enemy of any recent battle. Captain Hearne, the old
adjutant of our regiment, was killed. Eight of our regiment were instantly
killed; two mortally wounded, since dead.
“I did not think of writing so much when I began, but it is the first
opportunity of writing anything like a letter that I have had. Lieutenant
McMurray is now in charge of the Texas hospital at Auburn, Alabama.
* * * * *
“Well, you are now Aunt Missouri. Oh, that I could see my boy! Heaven has
protected me thus far and I hope that God will consider me through this
dreadful ordeal, and protect me for Christ’s sake; not that there is any
merit that I can offer, but I do hope to live that I may be an humble
instrument in the hands of my God to lead others to Him. I hold prayer in
our company nearly every night when circumstances will permit, and the
men don’t go to sleep before we are quiet. Poor fellows, they are ever
willing to join me, but often are so wearied I dislike to interrupt them.
“My sister, let our trust be confidently in God. He can save or He can
destroy. Let us pray Him for peace. He can give it us; not pray as if we
were making an experiment, but pray believing God will answer our prayers,
for we have much to pray for.”
My sister subsequently copied into her journal the following extract,
taken from his, and written soon after the Battle of New Hope Church:
“May 31st, 1864.--Here we rest by a little murmuring brook, singing along
as if the whole world was at peace. I lay down last night and gazed away
up in the peaceful heavens. All was quiet and serene up there, and the
stars seemed to vie with each other in brightness and were fulfilling
their allotted destiny. My comrades all asleep; nothing breaks the
silence. I leave earth for a time, and soar upon ‘imagination’s wings’ far
away from this war-accursed land to where bright angels sing their
everlasting songs of peace and strike their harps along the golden streets
of the New Jerusalem, and the swelling music bursts with sweet accord
throughout vast Heaven’s eternal space!”
* * * * *
Again on Sabbath, June 5th, he writes: “No music of church bells is heard
today summoning God’s people to worship where the gospel is wont to be
heard. We are near a large log church called Gilgal. What a different
scene is presented to-day from a Sabbath four years ago when the aged
minister of God read to a large and attentive congregation: “The Lord is
my shepherd, I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures,
He leadeth me beside the still waters.” O, God, wilt thou not interpose
Thy strong arm to stop the bloody strife? Wilt Thou not hear the prayers
of Thy people who daily say, Lord, give us peace? The Lord will answer,
and soon white-robed peace will smile upon our unhappy country. O God,
hasten the day, for we are sorely vexed, and thine shall be all the
glory.”
Ere peace was to dawn upon his beloved country, his own soul was to find
it through the portals of death; but ere that time, save a brief interval
of enforced rest, weary marchings and heart-breaking scenes and sorrows
were to intervene.
Thomie’s next letter is dated “In the Field, near Lost Mountain, June
14th,” and the next “In the Ditches, June 22nd, 1864.” The next, “Near
Chattahoochee River, July 6th, 1864,” tells of the retreat of the army
from Kennesaw Mountain to Smyrna Church, and of his coming off safely from
another “small fight” the day before, in which several of his comrades
were killed.
Owing to nervous prostration, and other illness, Thomie was soon after
sent to the hospital at Macon, transferred from there to Augusta, and from
the latter point given leave of absence to visit his sister, who had found
refuge with her cousin, Mrs. T. J. Hillsman, a daughter of Rev. Wm. H.
Stokes of blessed memory. Here, with his father’s kindred, cheered by
beautiful hospitality and cousinly affection, our darling brother enjoyed
the last sweet rest and quiet earth was e’er to give him before he slept
beneath its sod.
CHAPTER X.
A visit to Dalton--The fidelity of an old-time slave.
“From Atlanta to Dalton, $7.75. From the 23d to the 26th of April, 1864,
to Mrs. John Reynolds, for board, $20.00. From Dalton to Decatur, $8.00.”
The above statement of the expense attending a round trip to Dalton,
Georgia, is an excerpt from a book which contains a record of every item
of my expenditures for the year 1864.
This trip was taken for the purpose of carrying provisions and articles of
clothing to my brother and his comrades in General Joseph E. Johnston’s
command. In vain had our mother tried to send appetizing baskets of food
to her son, whose soldier rations consisted of salty bacon and hard tack;
some disaster, real or imaginary, always occurred to prevent them from
reaching their destination, and it was, therefore, determined at home that
I should carry the next consignment.
After several days’ preparation, jugs were filled with good sorghum syrup,
and baskets with bread, pies, cakes and other edibles at our command, and
sacks of potatoes, onions and peppers were included. My fond and loving
mother and I, and our faithful aid-de-camps of African descent, conveyed
them to the depot. In those days the depot was a favorite resort with the
ladies and children of Decatur. There they always heard something from the
front--wherever that might be. The obliging agent had a way, all his own,
of acquiring information from the army in all its varied commands, and
dealt it out galore to the encouragement or discouragement of his
auditors, as his prejudices or partialities prompted. On this occasion
many had gone there, who, like myself, were going to take the train for
Atlanta, and in the interim were eager to hear everything of a hopeful
character, even though reason urged that it was hoping against hope.
I was the cynosure of all eyes, as I was going to “the front;” and every
mother who had a darling son in that branch of the army hoped that he
would be the first to greet me on my arrival there, and give me a message
for her. And I am sure, if the love consigned to me for transmission could
have assumed tangible form and weight, it would have been more than
fourteen tons to the square inch.
Helpful, willing hands deposited with care my well-labeled jugs, baskets,
etc., and I deposited myself with equal care in an already well-filled
coach on the Georgia Railroad. Arrived in Atlanta I surreptitiously stowed
the jugs in the car with me, and then asked the baggage-master to transfer
the provisions to a Dalton freight train. Without seeming to do so, I
watched his every movement until I saw the last article safely placed in
the car, and then I went aboard myself. Surrounded by jugs and packages, I
again became an object of interest, and soon found myself on familiar
terms with all on board; for were we not friends and kindred bound to
each other by the closest ties? Every age and condition of Southern life
was represented in that long train of living, anxious freight. Young
wives, with wee bit tots chaperoned by their mothers and sometimes by
their grandmothers, were going to see their husbands, for, perhaps, the
last time on earth; and mothers, feeling that another fond embrace of
their sons would palliate the sting of final separation. The poor man and
the rich man, fathers alike of men fighting the same battles in defense of
the grandest principle that ever inspired mortal man to combat, on their
way to see those men and leave their benedictions with them; and sisters,
solitary and alone, going to see their beloved brothers and assure them
once more of the purest and most disinterested love that ever found
lodgment in the human heart. Many and pleasant were the brief
conversations between those dissimilar in manners, habits and conditions
in life; the great bond connecting them rendered every other consideration
subordinate, and the rich and poor, the educated and ignorant, met and
mingled in harmonious intercourse.
Those were days of slow travel in the South. The roads were literally
blockaded with chartered cars, which contained the household goods of
refugees who had fled from the wrath and vandalism of the enemy, and not
unfrequently refugees themselves inhabited cars that seemed in fearful
proximity to danger. Ample opportunity of observation on either side was
furnished by this slow travel, and never did the fine, arable lands
bordering the Western & Atlantic road from the Chattahoochee river to
Dalton give greater promise of cereals, and trees in large variety were
literally abloom with embryo fruit. Alas! that such a land should be
destined to fall into the hands of despoilers.
At Dalton I went immediately to the agent at the depot, whom I found to be
my old friend, John Reynolds, for the purpose of getting information
regarding boarding houses. He told me his wife was in that line and would
accommodate me, and, to render the application more easy, he gave me a
note of introduction to her.
A beautiful, well-furnished room was given me, and a luscious supper
possessed exhilarating properties.
In the meantime, Mr. Reynolds had, at my request, notified my brother,
whom he knew, of my presence in his house, and I awaited his coming
anxiously; but I was disappointed. A soldier’s time is not his own, even
in seasons of tranquility, and he was on duty and could not come then, but
he assured me on a small scrap of paper, torn from his note-book, that he
would come as soon as he could get off “tomorrow morning.”
The waiting seemed very long, and yet it had its ending. The night was
succeeded by a typical April day, replete with sunshine and shower, and
the hopes and fears of a people struggling for right over wrong.
At length the cheery voice of him, who always had a pleasant word for
every one, greeted me, and I hastened to meet him. That we might be quiet
and undisturbed, I conducted him to my room, and a long and pleasant
conversation ensued. I wish I had time and space to recapitulate the
conversation; for its every word and intonation are preserved in the
archives of memory, and will enter the grand eternities with me as free
from discord as when first uttered. Our mother’s failing health gave him
concern, but his firm reliance in Him who doeth all things well, quieted
his sad forebodings and led the way to pleasanter themes.
He loved to dwell upon the quaint and innocent peculiarities of his
younger sister, and, as for his older one, it was very evident that he
regarded her fully strong enough to “tote her own skillet,” and “paddle
her own canoe.” A rap upon the door indicated that some one wished to see
either one or the other of us. I responded, and was met by a negro boy
bearing a huge waiter, evidently well-filled, and covered over with a
snow-white cloth. The aroma from that waiter would have made a mummy
smile. I had it put upon a table, and then I removed the cover, and saw
with gratification the squab pie which I had ordered for dear Thomie, and
a greater gratification awaited me, _i. e._, seeing him eat it with a
relish. Nor was the pie the only luxury in that waiter. Fresh butter and
buttermilk, and a pone of good corn bread, etc., etc., supplemented by
baked apples and cream and sugar.
“Come, dear Thomie, and let us eat together once more,” was my invitation
to that dinner, and radiant with thanks he took the seat I offered him. I
did not have the Christian courage to ask him to invoke a blessing upon
this excellent food, but I saw that one was asked in silence,
nevertheless, and I am sure that an invocation went up from my own heart
none the less sincere.
“Sister, I appreciate this compliment,” he said.
“I could do nothing that would compliment you, Thomie,” I answered, and
added, “I hope you will enjoy your dinner as a love offering from me.”
We lingered long around that little table, and many topics were touched
upon during that period.
After dinner I asked Thomie to lie down and rest awhile. He thanked me,
and said that the bed would tempt an anchorite to peaceful slumber, and he
could not resist its wooings. A few minutes after he lay down he was sound
asleep. He slept as a child--calm and peaceful. That a fly might not
disturb him, I improvised a brush--my handkerchief and a tender twig from
a tree near by being the component parts. As I sat by him and studied his
manly young face, and read its expression of good will to all mankind, I
wept to think that God had possibly required him as our sacrifice upon the
altar of our country.
The slanting rays of the Western sun fell full and radiant upon his placid
face, and awakened him from this long and quiet slumber. With a smile he
arose and said:
“This won’t do for me.”
Hasty good-byes and a fervent “God bless you” were uttered, and another
one of the few partings that remained to be taken took place between the
soldier and his sister.
* * * * *
The day was bright and exhilarating, in the month of June, 1864. Gay
laughing Flora had tripped over woodland and lawn and scattered with
prodigal hands flowers of every hue and fragrance, and the balmy
atmosphere of early summer was redolent with their sweet perfume; and all
nature, animate and inanimate, seemed imbued with the spirit of adoration
towards the Giver of these perfect works. Although many hearts had been
saddened by the mighty conflict being waged for the supremacy of
Constitutional rights, there were yet in Decatur a large number to whom
personal sorrow for personal bereavement had not come, and they were in
sympathy with this beautiful scene, whose brilliant tints were but the
reflection of divine glory, and whose faintest odor was distilled in the
alchemy of heaven.
I was contemplating this scene in grateful admiration, and blended with my
thoughts came the memory of my brother, who was in the foremost ranks of
the contest. He, too, loved the beautiful and the good, and “looked from
nature up to nature’s God.” All unconsciously I found myself plucking his
favorite flowers, and arranging a choice boquet, a spirit offering to him
who might even then be hovering over me and preparing my mind for the sad
denouement. With these reflections, I ascended the steps of my cottage
home, and turned to take another look upon the enchanting scene, when I
saw, approaching, one of my mother’s faithful servants, who was hired to
Dr. Taylor, a well-known druggist of Atlanta. Ever apprehensive of evil
tidings from “the front,” and “the front” being the portion of the army
that embraced my brother, I was almost paralyzed. I stood as if riveted to
the floor, and awaited developments. King, for that was the name of the
ebony-hued and faithful servant whose unexpected appearance had caused
such a heart-flutter, came nearer and nearer. On his approach I asked in
husky voice, “Have you heard anything from your Marse Thomie, King?”
“No, ma’am; have you?”
The light of heaven seemed to dispel the dark clouds which had gathered
over and around my horizon, and I remembered my duty to one, who, though
in a menial position, had doubtless come on some kind errand.
“Come in, King, and sit down and rest yourself,” I said, pointing to an
easy chair on the portico.
“I am not tired, Miss Mary, and would rather stand,” he replied.
And he did stand, with his hat in his hand; and I thought for the first
time in my life, probably, that he evinced a true manhood, worthy of
Caucasian lineage; not that there was a drop of Caucasian blood in his
veins, for he was a perfect specimen of the African race and as black as
Erebus.
The suspense was becoming painful, when it was broken by King asking:
“Miss Mary, is Miss Polly at home?”
“Yes, King, and I will tell her you are here.”
“Miss Polly,” my mother and King’s mistress, soon appeared and gave him a
genuine welcome.
King now lost no time in making known the object of his visit, and thus
announced it:
“Miss Polly, don’t you want to sell me?”
“No; why do you ask?”
“Because, Miss Polly, Mr. Johnson wants to buy me, and he got me to come
to see you and ask you if you would sell me.”
“Do you want me to sell you, King? Would you rather belong to Mr. Johnson
than me?”
“Now, Miss Polly, you come to the point, and I am going to try to answer
it. I love you, and you have always been a good mistuss to us all, and I
don’t think there is one of us that would rather belong to some one else;
but I tell you how it is, Miss Polly, and you musn’t get mad with me for
saying it; when this war is over none of us are going to belong to you.
We’ll all be free, and I would a great deal rather Mr. Johnson would lose
me than you. He is always bragging about what he will do; hear him talk,
you would think he was a bigger man than Mr. Lincoln is, and had more to
back him; but I think he’s a mighty little man myself, and I want him to
lose me. He says he’ll give you his little old store on Peachtree street
for me. It don’t mean much, I know, but, much or little, it’s going to be
more than me after the war.”
And thus this unlettered man, who in the ordinary acceptation of the term
had never known what it was to be free, argued with his mistress the
importance of the exchange of property of which he himself was a part, for
her benefit and that of her children.
“Remember, Miss Polly,” he said, “that when Marse Thomie comes out of the
war, it will be mighty nice for him to have a store of his own to commence
business in, and if I was in your place I would take it for me, for I tell
you again, Miss Polly, when the war’s over we’ll all be free.”
But the good mistress, who had listened in silence to these arguments, was
unmoved. She saw before her a man who had been born a slave in her
family, and who had grown to man’s estate under the fostering care of
slavery, whose high sense of honor and gratitude constrained him to give
advice intelligently, which, if followed, would rescue her and her
children from impending adversity; but she determined not to take it. She
preferred rather to trust their future well-being into the hands of
Providence. Her beautiful faith found expression in this consoling passage
of Scripture: “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.” And this
blessed assurance must have determined her to pursue the course she did,
else it would have been reckless and improvident. She told King that when
our people became convinced that the troubles between the South and North
had to be settled by the sword, that she, in common with all good
citizens, staked her all upon the issues of the war, and that she would
not now, like a coward, flee from them, or seek to avert them by selling a
man, or men and women who had endeared themselves to her by service and
fidelity.
CHAPTER XI.
A PERILOUS TRUST.
“It is most time to go to the post-office, ain’t it, Miss Mary? We are
going to get a letter from Marse Thomie this morning.”
“What makes you so certain of it, Toby?”
“I don’t know’m, but I am; and every time I feels this way, I gets one; so
I’ll just take my two little black calves and trot off to the office and
get it;” and suiting the action to the word he struck a pretty brisk gait
and was soon around the corner and out of sight.
Then Decatur received but two mails per day--one from an easterly
direction and the other from a westerly direction. The northern,
northwestern, southern and southwestern, all coming in on the morning’s
Georgia Railroad train. Therefore ever since Thomie’s return to his
command, the western mail was the one around which our hopes and fears
daily clustered.
General Joseph E. Johnston’s army was, at the time of this incident, at
Dalton, obstructing the advance of Sherman’s “three hundred thousand men”
on destruction bent. And though there had been no regular line of battle
formed for some time by the Confederate and Federal forces, there were
frequent skirmishes, disastrous alike to both sides. Hence the daily
alternation of hopes and fears in the hearts of those whose principal
occupation was waiting and watching for “news from the front.”
The team of which Toby was the proud possessor did its work quickly, and
in less time than it takes to tell it he appeared in sight, returning from
the post-office--one hand clasping a package of papers and letters, and
the other, raised high above his head, holding a letter. I could not wait,
and ran to meet him.
“I’ve got a whole lot of letters, and every one of them is from Dalton,
and this one is from Marse Thomie!”
Toby had read the Dalton post-mark, and had made a correct statement. The
well-known chirography of my brother had become so familiar to him that he
never mistook it for another, and was unerring in his declarations
regarding it. On this occasion Thomie’s letter thus read:
“MY DEAR SISTER:--Those acquainted with army tactics know that General
Johnston is on the eve of an important move, or change of base; and that
it should be the effort of the men, officers and privates, to be prepared
to make the change, whatever it may be, with as little loss of army
paraphernalia as possible. As the Confederate army has no repository
secure from the approach of the enemy, several of our friends suggest that
you might be willing to take care of anything which we might send to you,
that would be of future use to us--heavy overcoats, extra blankets, etc.,
etc. Consider well the proposition before you consent. Should they be
found in your possession, by the enemy, then our home might be demolished,
and you perhaps imprisoned, or killed upon the spot. Are you willing to
take the risk, trusting to your ingenuity and bravery to meet the
consequences? Let me know as soon as possible, as war times admit of
little delay. General Granbury, Colonel Bob Young, and others may make
known to you their wishes by personal correspondence. Love to my mother
and sister, and to yourself, brave heart.
Affectionately, your brother
T. J. STOKES.”
This letter was read aloud to my mother, and the faithful mail carrier was
not excluded. She listened and weighed every word of its contents. For
several moments a silence reigned, which was broken by her asking me what
I was going to do in the matter.
“What would you have me do?” I asked in reply.
“What would they do, Mary, in very cold weather, if they should lose their
winter clothing, overcoats and blankets, now that supplies are so
difficult to obtain?”
This question, evasive as it was, convinced me that my mother’s patriotism
was fully adequate to the occasion, and, fraught with peril as it might
be, she was willing to bear her part of the consequences of taking care of
the soldiers’ clothes.
The return mail bore the following letter addressed jointly to General
Granbury, Colonel Robert Young, Captains Lauderdale and Formwalt,
Lieutenant Stokes, and Major John Y. Rankin;
“MY DEAR BROTHER AND FRIENDS:--I thank you for the estimate you have
placed upon my character and patriotism, as indicated by your request that
I should take care of your overcoats, blankets, etc., until you need
them. If I were willing to enjoy the fruits of your valor and sacrifices
without also being willing to share your perils, I would be unworthy
indeed. Yes, if I knew that for taking care of those things, I would
subject myself to real danger, I would essay the duty. Send them on. I
will meet them in Atlanta, and see that they continue their journey to
Decatur without delay.
Your friend,
M. A. H. G.”
Another mail brought intelligence of the shipment of the goods, and I lost
no time in going to Atlanta and having them re-shipped to Decatur. There
were nine large dry goods boxes, and I went, immediately on their arrival,
to Mr. E. Mason’s and engaged his two-horse wagon and driver to carry them
from the depot to our home. When they were brought, we had them placed in
our company dining-room. This room, by a sort of tacit understanding, had
become a storeroom for the army before this important lot of goods came,
and, as a dining-room, much incongruity of furniture existed, among which
was a large, high wardrobe. The blinds were now closed and secured, the
sash put down and fastened, the doors shut and locked, and this room given
up to the occupancy of Confederate articles; and thus it remained during
the eventful period intervening between the departure of General Joseph E.
Johnston’s army from Dalton, and Sherman’s infamous order to the people of
Atlanta and vicinity to leave their homes, that they might be destroyed by
his vandal hordes.
CHAPTER XII.
A SCENE IN AN ATLANTA CONFEDERATE HOSPITAL.
“Well, my boy, our patients are all getting along nicely in the Fair
Ground hospital,” was the comforting assurance I gave to Toby, who was my
faithful co-worker in all that pertained to the comfort of our soldiers.
“Suppose we go to the Empire hospital and see what we can do there.”
“Yes’m, I have always wanted to go there.”
Taking one of the baskets we had brought with us from Decatur, and which
contained biscuits, rusk, broiled and fried chicken, ground coffee and
blackberry wine, I handed it to him and we wended our way to the hospital.
Things were not in as good shape there as at the Fair Ground hospital. I
perceived this at a glance, and, upon asking and receiving permission from
the superintendent, I soon tidied up things considerably. Toby brought
pails of fresh water, and aided in bathing the faces, hands and arms of
the convalescing soldiers, while I hunted up the soldier lads who ought to
have been at home with their mothers, and bestowed the tender loving
service that woman only can give to the sick and suffering.
Entering one of the wards I perceived a youth, or one I took to be a
youth, from his slender fragile figure, and his beardless face, lean and
swarthy in sickness, but beautiful in its fine texture and the marblelike
whiteness of the brow. That he was of French extraction there could be no
doubt. Quietly kneeling by the side of his cot, I contemplated his face,
his head, his figure--I listened to his breathing, and watched the
pulsations of his heart, and knew that his days, yea, his hours were
numbered. Taking his hand in mine, I perceived that the little vitality
that remained was fast burning up with fever. Putting back the beautiful
rings of raven hair that lay in disheveled clusters over his classic head,
and partly concealed his white brow, I thought of his mother, and
imprinted upon his forehead a kiss for her sake. The deep slumber induced
by anodynes was broken by that touch, and a dazed awakening ensued.
“Mother,” was his pathetic and only utterance.
“What can I do for you, my dear child?”
There are looks and tones which are never forgotten, and never shall I
forget the utter despair in the eyes, lustrous and beautiful enough to
look upon the glory of heaven, and the anguish of the voice, musical
enough to sing the songs of everlasting bliss, as he said in tremulous
tone and broken sentences:
“I want to see a Catholic priest. I have paid several men to go for me.
They have gone off and never returned. I have no money with which to pay
any one else.”
In silence I listened and wept. At length I said:
“My dear young friend, can you not make confession to ‘our Father which
art in Heaven,’ and ask Him for Christ’s sake to absolve you from all sins
of which you may think yourself guilty? He will do it without the
intervention of a priest, if you will only believe on Him and trust Him.
Can you not do this?”
The pencil of Raphael would fail to depict the anguish of his face; all
hope left it, and, as he turned his despairing look upon the wall, tear
drops glistened in his eyes and filled the sunken hollows beneath them.
Again I took his passive hand in mine, and with the other hand upon his
white forehead, I told him he should see a priest--that I myself would go
for one, and just as soon as he could be found I would return with him.
Before leaving, however, I went to the ward where I had left Toby and the
basket, and filling a little glass with wine, I brought it to the sinking
youth. He could not be induced to taste it. In vain I plead with him, and
told him that it would strengthen him for the interview with the priest.
“I am going now, and will come back, too, as soon as I can,” I said to the
dying youth, for to all intents and purposes he was dying then. Seeing the
other patients watching my every movement with pathetic interest, I was
reminded to give the rejected wine to the weakest looking one of them.
Leaving Toby either to wait on, or amuse the soldiers of the ward first
entered (where I found him playing the latter role, much to their
delight), with hasty steps I went to the Catholic parsonage on Hunter
street. In response to my ring the door was opened by an Irish woman from
whom I learned that the priest was not in, and would not be until he came
to luncheon at 12 o’clock M. It was then 11 o’clock, and I asked the
privilege of waiting in the sitting room until he came. This being
granted, I entered the room consecrated to celibacy, and perhaps to holy
thoughts, judging from the pictures upon the walls and the other
ornaments. These things furnished food for reflection, and the waiting
would not have seemed so long but for the thought of the poor suffering
one who had given his young life for our cause. Intuitively I knew the
sound of clerical footsteps as they entered the hall, and hastening to
meet him I asked, “Is this Father O’Riley?” Receiving an affirmative
answer, I told him of the youth at the Empire hospital who refused to be
comforted other than by a Catholic priest, and of my promise to bring one
to him. Father O’Riley said he had been out since early morning, visiting
the sick, and would be obliged to refresh himself, both by food and
repose, but that I could say to the young man that he would be there by 3
o’clock. “O, sir, you don’t realize the importance of haste. Please let me
remain in your sitting room until you have eaten your luncheon, and then I
know you will go with me. I, too, have been out ever since early morning
engaged in the same Christ-like labors as yourself, and I do not require
either food or repose.”
My earnestness prevailed, and in a short while we were at our destination.
At my request, Father O’Riley waited in the passage-way leading to the
ward until I went in to prepare the young man for his coming. I found him
in that restless condition, neither awake nor asleep, which often precedes
the deep sleep that knows no waking. Wetting my handkerchief with cold
water, I bathed his face and hands, and spoke gently to him, and, when he
seemed sufficiently aroused to understand me, I told him in cheerful tones
that he could not guess who had come to see him. Catching his look of
inquiry, I told him it was Father O’Riley, and that I would bring him in.
Opening the door, I motioned to Father O’Riley to follow me. The dying
youth and the Catholic priest needed no introduction by me. There was a
mystic tie between them that I recognized as sacred, and I left them
alone. Telling Father O’Riley that I consigned my charge to him, and that
I would come back to-morrow, I bade them good-bye and left.
The contents of the basket had been gratefully received and devoured by
those who deserved the best in the land, because they were the land’s
defenders.
To-morrow Toby and I, and the basket, were at the Empire hospital in due
time, but the poor suffering youth was not there. The emancipated spirit
had taken its flight to Heaven, and all that was mortal of that brave
young soldier had been consigned by the ceremonies of the church he loved
so well to the protecting care of mother earth.
CHAPTER XIII.
Concealing Confederate Clothing--Valuables Carried to Atlanta--Toby Taken
Ill.
On the way to the post-office early one morning in the sultry month of
July, 1864, to mail a number of letters which I deemed too important to be
entrusted to other hands, I was accosted as follows by “Uncle Mack,” the
good negro blacksmith, whose shop was situated immediately upon the route:
“Did you know, Miss Mary, that the Yankees have crossed the river, and are
now this side of the Chattahoochee.”
“Why, no!” I said, and added with as much calmness as I could affect, “I
do not know why I should be surprised--there is nothing to prevent them
from coming into Decatur.”
With an imprecation more expressive than elegant, that evil should
overtake them before getting here, he resumed hammering at the anvil, and
I my walk to the post-office. Nor was Uncle Mack the only one who
volunteered the information that “The Yankees are coming--they are this
side the river.”
The time had come to devise means and methods of concealing the winter
clothing and other accoutrements entrusted to my care by our dear
soldiers. In order to save them, what should I do with them?--was a
question which I found myself unable to answer. An attempt to retain and
defend them would be futile indeed. And I have no right to jeopardize my
mother’s home by a rash effort to accomplish an impossibility. But what
shall I do with these precious things, is the question. A happy thought
struck me, and I pursued it only to find it delusive. The near approach of
Sherman’s army developed the astounding fact that Dr. A. Holmes, of
Decatur, a Baptist minister of some prominence, claimed to be a Union man,
in full sympathy with any means that would soonest quell the rebellion.
This I had not heard, and in my dilemma I went to him to impart my plans
and ask advice. He was morose and reticent, and I hesitated; but, driven
by desperation, I finally said: “Dr. Holmes, as a minister of the gospel,
are you not safe? All civilized nations respect clerical robes, do they
not?”
“I think so,” he said, and continued by saying, “I have other claims upon
the Federal army which will secure me from molestation.”
A look of surprise and inquiry being my only answer, he said, “Amid the
secession craze, I have never given up my allegiance to the United
States.”
“Why, Dr. Holmes!” I said, in unfeigned surprise.
“I repeat most emphatically that I have remained unshaken in my allegiance
to the United States. I have no respect for a little contemptible Southern
Confederacy, whose flag will never be recognized on land or on sea.”
This was a sad revelation to me. On more than one occasion I had heard Dr.
Holmes pray fervently for the success of the Southern cause, and to hear
such changed utterances from him now, pained me exceedingly. Heartsore and
discouraged, I turned from him, and was leaving without the usual
ceremony, when he said:
“What can I do for you?”
“I came, sir, to ask a great favor of you, but after hearing you express
yourself as you have, I deem it useless to make known my wishes. Good
morning.”
This interview with Dr. Holmes was very brief; it did not consume as much
time as it has done to tell it.
I did not walk in those days, but ran, and it required only a few moments
to transfer the scene of action from Dr. Holmes’ to my mother’s residence.
A hurried, whispered conversation acquainted her with the situation; and
at my request, and upon a plausible pretense, she took Toby to the depot
where she remained until I sent for her. My confidence in Toby had not in
the least diminished, but, being a boy, I feared that he might have his
price, or be intimidated by threats into the betrayal of our secret; hence
the management as above related to get him off the place while I
consummated a plan, which, if successful, would be a great achievement,
but, if a failure, would be fraught with disaster. In those days “the
depot” was a place of popular resort--it was the emporium of news; and
either from the agent, or from the Confederate scouts that were ever and
anon dashing through Decatur with cheerful messages and words of hope, the
anxious mothers and sisters of the soldiers often wended their way there
in hope of hearing something from their loved ones. Therefore no suspicion
was aroused by this going to the depot.
Watching the receding form of my mother until she had passed out of the
gate, and Toby had closed it after her, I then went to the rear door and
motioned to Telitha, who chanced to be in the right place, to come into
the house. After seeing that every outside door was thoroughly secure, I
took her into the dining room where the boxes were which contained the
winter clothing, blankets, etc., already mentioned as having been sent for
storage by our soldier friends at Dalton, and told her in pantomime that
the Yankees were coming, and if they saw these thing’s they would kill us
and burn the house. She fully understood and repeated the pantomime
illustrative of possible--yea, probable--coming events, with pathetic
effect. I showed her that I wanted a hammer and chisel with which to take
off the lids of the boxes, and she brought them. The lids removed, each
article was carefully lifted from its repository and placed on chairs.
This important step being taken towards the concealment of the goods, I
raised the sash and opened the shutters of the window nearest the cellar,
which was unlocked and open, and Telitha, climbing out the window,
received the boxes as I handed them to her, and carried them into the
cellar. Old and soiled as the boxes were, they were not in a condition to
create suspicion of recent use, so from that source we had nothing to
fear. Telitha again in the house, shutters closed, and sash down,
preparation was resumed for the enactment of a feat dangerous and rash,
the thought of which, even at this remote period, almost produces a
tremor. The wardrobe mentioned in a former sketch as an incongruity in a
dining room, was emptied of its contents, and inch by inch placed as near
the center of the room as possible; then a large table was placed beside
it, and a chair upon that; and then with the help of another chair, which
served as a step, I got upon the table and then upon the chair that was
upon the table. As I went up, Telitha followed; standing upon the table
she grasped the wardrobe with her strong hands and held it securely. I
ascended from the chair to the top of it, stood up and steadied myself,
and waited, immovable as a statue, until she got down and brought the
chisel and hammer and placed them at my feet, and resumed her hold upon
the wardrobe. I stooped and picked up the utensils with which I had to
work, and straightened and steadied myself again. The chisel touched the
plastered ceiling and the hammering began. Very slow work it was at first,
as the licks had to be upward instead of downward, and the plastering was
very thick. Finally the chisel went through and was withdrawn and moved to
another place, and by repeated efforts I secured an aperture large enough
to insert my fingers, and a few well-directed licks round and about so
cracked and weakened the plastering that I was enabled to pull off some
large pieces. A new difficulty presented itself. The laths were long, much
longer than those of the present day, and I not only had to make a large
opening in the ceiling, but to take off the plastering without breaking
the laths. More than once the wardrobe had to be moved that I might pull
off the plastering, and then with the greatest care prize off the laths.
At length the feat was accomplished, and I laid the lids of the boxes,
which had been reserved for this purpose, across the joists, and made a
floor upon which to lay the goods more than once specified in these
sketches. When the last article had been laid on this improvised shelf, I
gazed upon them in silent anguish and wept. Telitha caught the melancholy
inspiration and also wept. Each lath was restored to its place and the
perilous work was completed, and how I thanked the Lord for the steady
nerve and level head that enabled me to do this service for those who were
fighting the battles of my country.
But the debris must be removed. While the doors were yet closed and
fastened, we pounded and broke the plastering into very small pieces and
filled every vessel and basket in the house. I then went out and walked
very leisurely over the yard and lot, and lingered over every lowly flower
that sweetened the atmosphere by its fragrance, and when I was fully
persuaded that no spy was lurking nigh I re-entered the house and locked
the door. Picking up the largest vessel, and motioning Telitha to follow
suit, I led the way through a back door to a huge old ash hopper, and
emptied the pulverized plastering into it. In this way we soon had every
trace of it removed from the floor. The dust that had settled upon
everything was not so easily removed, but the frequent use of dusting
brushes and flannel cloths disposed of the most of it.
I now wrote a note to my mother, inviting her to come home, and to bring
Toby with her. We kept the doors of the dining room closed, as had been
our wont for some time, and if Toby ever discovered the change, he never
betrayed the knowledge of it by word or look. After a light breakfast,
and the excitement of the day, I felt that we ought to have a good,
luscious dinner, and, with the help at my command, went to work preparing
it, and, as was my custom of late, I did not forget to provide for others
who might come in. More than once during the day Confederate scouts had
galloped in and spoken a few words of encouragement; and after taking a
drink of water from the old oaken bucket, had galloped out again, so I
hoped they would come back when the biscuit and tea-cakes were done, that
I might fill their pockets.
After the last meal of the day had been eaten, I held another whispered
consultation with my mother, and in pursuance of the course agreed upon I
emptied several trunks, and with her help filled one with quilts and
blankets, and other bedding; another with china and cut glass, well
packed; and another with important papers, treasured relics, etc., and
locked and strapped them ready for shipment next morning.
A night of unbroken rest and sleep prepared me for another day of
surprises and toil, and before dawn I was up, dressed, waiting for
daylight enough to justify me in the effort to see Mr. Ezekiel Mason, and
beg him to hire me his team and driver to carry the trunks to the depot.
After my ready compliance with his terms, he agreed to send them as soon
as possible. The delay caused me to go on a freight train to Atlanta, but
I congratulated myself upon that privilege, as the trunks and Toby went on
the same train. There was unusual commotion and activity about the depot
in Atlanta, and a superficial observer would have been impressed with the
business-like appearance of the little city at that important locality.
Men, women, and children moved about as if they meant business. Trains
came in rapidly, and received their complement of freight, either animate
or inanimate, and screamed themselves hoarse and departed, giving place to
others that went through with the same routine. Drays and every manner of
vehicles blocked the streets, and endangered life, limb, and property of
all who could not vie with them in push, vim, and dare-deviltry. In vain
did I appeal to scores of draymen, white and black, to carry my trunks to
the home of Mr. McArthur, on Pryor street--money was offered with
liberality, but to no avail. Despairing of aid, I bade Toby follow me, and
went to Mr. McArthur’s. He and his good wife were willing to receive the
trunks and give them storage room, but could extend no aid in bringing
them there. At length, as a last resort, it was decided that Toby should
take their wheelbarrow and bring one trunk at a time. I returned with him
to the depot and had the most valuable trunk placed upon the wheelbarrow,
and, with my occasional aid, Toby got it to its destination. A second trip
was made in like manner, and the third was not a failure, although I saw
that Toby was very tired. Thanking my good friends for the favor they were
extending, I hurried back to the depot, myself and Toby, to take the first
train to Decatur. Imagine our consternation on learning that the Yankees
had dashed in and torn up the Georgia Railroad track from Atlanta to
Decatur, and were pursuing their destructive work towards Augusta.
Neither for love nor money could a seat in any kind of vehicle going in
that direction be obtained, nor were I and my attendant the only ones thus
cut off from home; and I soon discovered that a spirit of independence
pervaded the crowd. Many were the proud possessors of elegant spans of
“little white ponies” which they did not deem too good to propel them
homeward. Seeking to infuse a little more life and animation into Toby, I
said:
“Well, my boy, what do you think of bringing out your little black ponies
and running a race with my white ones to Decatur? Do you think you can
beat in the race?”
“I don’t know’m,” he said, without his usual smile, when I essayed a
little fun with him, and I evidently heard him sigh. But knowing there was
no alternative, I started in a brisk walk towards Decatur, and said to
him, “Come on, or I’ll get home before you do.” He rallied and kept very
close to me, and we made pretty good time. The gloaming was upon us, the
period of all others auspicious to thought, and to thought I abandoned
myself. The strife between the sections of a once glorious country was a
prolific theme, and I dwelt upon it in all of its ramifications, and
failed to find cause for blame in my peculiar people; and my step became
prouder, and my willingness to endure all things for their sakes and mine
was more confirmed. In the midst of these inspiring reflections, Toby, who
had somewhat lagged behind, came running up to me and said:
“Oh! Miss Mary, just look at the soldiers. And they are ours, too!”
To my dying day I shall never forget the scene to which he called my
attention. In the weird stillness it appeared as if the Lord had raised up
of the stones a mighty host to fight our battles. Not a sound was heard,
nor a word spoken, as those in the van passed opposite me, on and on, and
on, in the direction of Decatur, in what seemed to me an interminable line
of soldiery. Toby and I kept the track of the destroyed railroad, and were
somewhere between General Gartrell’s residence and Mr. Pitts’, the midway
station between Atlanta and Decatur, when the first of these soldiers
passed us, and we were at Kirkwood when that spectre-like band had fully
gone. Once the moon revealed me so plainly that a cheer, somewhat
repressed, but nevertheless hearty, resounded through the woods, and I
asked:
“Whose command?”
“Wheeler’s Cavalry,” was the simultaneous response of many who heard my
inquiry.
“Don’t you know me? I am the one you gave the best breakfast I ever ate,
that morning we dashed into Decatur before sun-up.”
“And I’m the one too.”
“O, don’t mention it,” I said. “You are giving your lives for me, and the
little I can do for you is nothing in comparison. May God be with you and
shield you from harm until this cruel war is over.”
I missed Toby, and looking back, saw him sitting down. I hurried to him,
saying, “What is it, my boy?”
“O, Miss Mary, I am so sick. I can’t go any further. You can go on home,
and let me stay here--when I feel better I’ll go too.”
“No, my boy, I’ll not leave you.” And sitting by him I told him to rest
his head upon my lap, and maybe after awhile he would feel better, and
then we would go on. In the course of a half hour he vomited copiously,
and soon after he told me he felt better, and would try to go on. More
than once his steps were unsteady and he looked dazed; but under my
patient guidance and encouraging words he kept up and we pursued our
lonely walk until we reached Decatur.
As soon as we entered the town, we perceived that we had overtaken
Wheeler’s Cavalry. They were lying on the ground, asleep, all over the
place; and in most instances their horses were lying by them, sleeping
too. And I noticed that the soldiers, even though asleep, never released
their hold upon the bridles. At home I found my mother almost frantic. She
knew nothing of the causes detaining me, and supposed that some disaster
had befallen me individually. A good supper, including a strong cup of tea
prepared by her hands, awaited us, and I attested my appreciation of it by
eating heartily. Toby drank a cup of tea only, and said he “was very tired
and hurt all over.”
CHAPTER XIV.
The advance guard of the Yankee army--I am ordered out--A noble Federal.
The day clear, bright and beautiful, in July, 1864, and though a
midsummer’s sun cast its vertical rays upon the richly-carpeted earth,
refreshing showers tempered the heat and preserved in freshness and beauty
the vernal robes of May and kept the atmosphere pure and delightful.
Blossoms of every hue and fragrance decked the landscape, and Ceres and
Pomona had been as lavish with their grains and fruits as Flora had been
with flowers.
And I, assisted by Toby and Telitha, had gathered from the best of these
rich offerings, and prepared a feast for Wheeler’s Cavalry. By the way,
strive against it as I would, I was more than once disturbed by the mental
inquiry: “What has become of Wheeler’s Cavalry? I saw it enter Decatur
last night, and now there is not a soldier to be seen. It is true a large
number of scouts came in this morning, and spoke comforting words to my
mother, and reconnoitered around town fearlessly, but what has become of
them?” Hope whispered: “Some strategic movement that will culminate in the
capture of the entire Yankee army, no doubt is engaging its attention.”
Yielding to these delusive reflections, and the seductive influence of
earth, air and sky, I became quite exhilarated and hummed little snatches
of the songs I used to sing in the happy days of childhood, before a hope
had been disappointed or a shadow cast over my pathway.
These scenes and these songs were not in keeping with the impending
disasters even then at our portals. Crapen draperies and funeral dirges
would have been far more in keeping with the developments of the day.
Distant roar of cannon and sharp report of musketry spoke in language
unmistakable the approach of the enemy, and the rapidity of that approach
was becoming fearfully alarming. Decatur offered many advantages as
headquarters to an invading, devastating foe, “and three hundred thousand
men” under the guidance of a merciless foe ought to have entered it long
before they did--and would have done so if their bravery had been
commensurate with their vandalism.
“Yank! Yank!” exclaimed our deaf negro girl, Telitha, as she stroked her
face as if stroking beard, and ran to get a blue garment to indicate the
color of their apparel, and this was our first intimation of their
appearance in Decatur. If all the evil spirits had been loosed from Hades,
and Satan himself had been turned loose upon us, a more terrific,
revolting scene could not have been enacted.
Advance guards, composed of every species of criminals ever incarcerated
in the prisons of the Northern States of America, swooped down upon us,
and every species of deviltry followed in their footsteps. My poor mother,
frightened and trembling, and myself, having locked the doors of the
house, took our stand with the servants in the yard, and witnessed the
grand _entre_ of the menagerie. One of the beasts got down upon his
all-fours and pawed up the dust and bellowed like an infuriated bull. And
another asked me if I did not expect to see them with hoofs and horns. I
told him, “No, I had expected to see some gentlemen among them, and was
sorry I should be disappointed.”
My entire exemption from fear on that occasion must have been our
safeguard, as no personal violence was attempted. He who personated a bull
must have been the king’s fool, and was acting in collusion with the house
pillagers sent in advance of the main army to do their dirty work, and to
reduce the people to destitution and dependence. While he thought he was
entertaining us with his quadrupedal didos, a horde of thieves were
rummaging the house, and everything of value they could get their hands
upon they stole--locks and bolts having proved ineffectual barriers to
this nefarious work. By this time the outside marauders had killed every
chicken and other fowl upon the place, except one setting-hen. A fine cow,
and two calves, and twelve hogs shared a similar fate.
Several hours had passed since the coming of the first installment of the
G. A. R., and a few scattering officers were perambulating the streets,
and an occasional cavalryman reconnoitering. Having surveyed the
situation, and discovered that only women and children and a few faithful
negroes occupied the town, the main army came in like an avalanche. Yea,
if an avalanche and a simoon had blended their fury and expended it upon
that defenceless locality, a greater change could scarcely have been
wrought.
The morning’s sun had shone upon a scene of luxuriant beauty, and
heightened its midsummer loveliness, but the same sun, only a few hours
later, witnessed a complete transformation, and blight and desolation
reigned supreme. My mother and myself, afraid to go in the house, still
maintained our outdoor position, and our two faithful servants clung very
close to us, notwithstanding repeated efforts to induce them to leave. Our
group had received addition. Emmeline, a negro girl whom we had hired out
in Decatur, had been discharged, and had now come home. She was not so
faithful as her kith and kin, and was soon on familiar terms with the
bummers. Toby complained of being very tired, and when we all came to
think about it, we discovered that we, too, were tired, and without being
asked took seats upon the capacious lap of mother earth. As we were not
overly particular about the position we assumed, we must have presented
quite an aboriginal appearance. But what mattered it--we were only rebels.
Notwithstanding the insignia of the conqueror was displayed on every hand,
we felt to a certain degree more protected by the presence of commissioned
officers, and ventured to go into the house. I will not attempt a
description of the change that had taken place since we had locked the
door, and, for better protection, had taken our stand in the yard.
Garrard’s Cavalry selected our lot, consisting of several acres, for
headquarters, and soon what appeared to us to be an immense army train of
wagons commenced rolling into it. In less than two hours our barn was
demolished and converted into tents, which were occupied by privates and
non-commissioned officers, and to the balusters of our portico and other
portions of the house were tied a number of large ropes, which, the other
ends being secured to trees and shrubbery, answered as a railing to which
at short intervals apart a number of smaller ropes were tied, and to these
were attached horses and mules, which were eating corn and oats out of
troughs improvised for the occasion out of bureau, washstand, and wardrobe
drawers.
Men in groups were playing cards on tables of every size and shape; and
whisky and profanity held high carnival. Thus surrounded we could but be
apprehensive of danger; and, to assure ourselves of as much safety as
possible, we barricaded the doors and windows, and arranged to sit up all
night, that is, my mother and myself.
Toby complained of being very tired, and “hurting all over,” as he
expressed it. We assisted him in making the very best pallet that could be
made of the material at our command, and he lay down completely
prostrated. Telitha was wide awake, and whenever she could secure a
listener chattered like a magpie in unintelligible language, accompanied
by unmistakable gestures--gestures which an accomplished elocutionist
might adopt with effect--and the burden of her heart was for Emmeline.
Emmeline having repudiated our protection, had sought shelter, the Lord
only knows where. Alas, poor girl!
As we sat on a lounge, every chair having been taken to the camps, we
heard the sound of footsteps entering the piazza, and in a moment, loud
rapping, which meant business. Going to the window nearest the door, I
removed the fastenings, raised the sash, and opened the blinds. Perceiving
by the light of a brilliant moon that at least a half-dozen men in
uniforms were on the piazza, I asked:
“Who is there?”
“Gentlemen,” was the laconic reply.
“If so, you will not persist in your effort to come into the house. There
is only a widow and one of her daughters, and two faithful servants in
it,” I said.
“We have orders from headquarters to interview Miss Gay. Is she the
daughter of whom you speak?”
“She is, and I am she.”
“Well, Miss Gay, we demand seeing you, without intervening barriers. Our
orders are imperative,” said he who seemed to be the spokesman of the
delegation.
“Then wait a moment,” I amiably responded. Going to my mother I repeated
in substance the above colloquy, and asked her if she would go with me out
of one of the back doors and around the house into the front yard.
Although greatly agitated and trembling, she readily assented, and we
noiselessly went out. In a few moments we announced our presence, and our
visitors descended the steps and joined us. And those men, occupying a
belligerent attitude towards ourselves and all that was dear to us, stood
face to face and in silence contemplated each other. When the silence was
broken the aforesaid officer introduced himself as Major Campbell, a
member of General Schofield’s staff. He also introduced the accompanying
officers each by name and title. This ceremony over, Major Campbell said:
“Miss Gay, our mission is a painful one, and yet we will have to carry it
out unless you satisfactorily explain acts reported to us.”
“What is the nature of those acts?”
“We have been told that it is your proudest boast that you are a rebel,
and that you are ever on duty to aid and abet in every possible way the
would-be destroyers of the United States government. If this be so, we
cannot permit you to remain within our lines. Until Atlanta surrenders,
Decatur will be our headquarters, and every consideration of interest to
our cause requires that no one inimical to it should remain within our
boundaries established by conquest.”
In reply to these charges, I said:
“Gentlemen, I have not been misrepresented, so far as the charges you
mention are concerned. If I were a man, I should be in the foremost ranks
of those who are fighting for rights guaranteed by the Constitution of the
United States. The Southern people have never broken that compact, nor
infringed upon it in any way. They have never organized mobs to
assassinate any portion of the people sharing the privileges granted by
that compact. They have constructed no underground railroads to bring into
our midst incendiaries and destroyers of the peace, and to carry off
stolen property. They have never sought to array the subordinate element
of the North in deadly hostility to the controlling element. No class of
the women of the South have ever sought positions at the North which
secured entrance into good households, and then betrayed the confidence
reposed by corrupting the servants and alienating the relations between
the master and the servant. No class of the women of the South have ever
mounted the rostrum and proclaimed falsehoods against the women of the
North--falsehoods which must have crimsoned with shame the very cheeks of
Beelzebub.
“No class of the men of the South have ever tramped over the North with
humbugs, extorting money either through sympathy or credulity, and engaged
at the same time in the nefarious work of exciting the subordinate class
to insurrection, arson, rapine and murder. If the South is in rebellion, a
well-organized mob at the North has brought it about. Long years of
patient endurance accomplished nothing. The party founded on falsehood and
hate strengthened and grew to enormous proportions. And, by the way, mark
the cunning of that party. Finding that the Abolition party made slow
progress and had to work in the dark, it changed its name and took in new
issues, and by a systematic course of lying in its institutions of
learning, from the lowly school-house to Yale College, and from its
pulpits and rostrums, it inculcated lessons of hate towards the Southern
people whom it would hurl into the crater of Vesuvius if endowed with the
power. What was left us to do but to try to relieve that portion of the
country which had permitted this sentiment of hate to predominate, of all
connection with us, and of all responsibility for the sins of which it
proclaimed us guilty? This effort the South has made, and I have aided and
abetted in every possible manner, and will continue to do so just as long
as there is an armed man in the Southern ranks. If this be sufficient
cause to expel me from my home, I await your orders. I have no favors to
ask.”
Imagine my astonishment, admiration and gratitude, when that group of
Federal officers, with unanimity said:
“I glory in your spunk, and am proud of you as my countrywoman; and so far
from banishing you from your home, we will vote for your retention within
our lines.”
Thus the truth prevailed; but a new phase of the conflict was inaugurated,
as proved by subsequent developments.
Turning to my mother, Major Campbell said:
“Mother, how did our advance guards treat you?”
A quivering of the lips, and a tearful effort to speak, was all the
response she could make. The aggravation of already extreme nervousness
was doing its work.
“Would you like to see?” I said. He indicated rather than expressed an
affirmative answer.
I went around and entered the house, and, opening the front door, invited
him and his friends to come in. A hindrance to the exhibit I was anxious
to make presented itself--we had neither candle nor lamp, and this I told
to the officers. Calling to a man in the nearest camp, Major Campbell
asked him to bring a light. This being done, I led the way into the front
room, and there our distinguished guests were confronted by a huge pallet
occupied by a sixteen-year-old negro boy. A thrill of amusement evidently
passed through this group of western men, and electrical glances conveyed
messages of distrust when I told them of my walk yesterday afternoon,
accompanied by this boy, and his exhaustion before we got home, and his
complaints of “hurting all over” before he lay down an hour ago.
A low consultation was held, and one of the officers left and soon
returned with another who proved to be a physician. He aroused the boy,
asked several questions, and examined his pulse and tongue.
“That will do,” said he, and turning to the others, he said:
“He is a very sick boy, and needs medical treatment at once. I will
prescribe and go for the medicine, which I wish given according to
directions.”
Having received a statement of the boy’s condition from a trusted source,
we were evidently re-instated into the good opinion of Major Campbell and
his friends. Telitha had retired from them to as great a distance as the
boundaries of the room would permit, and every time she caught my eye she
looked and acted what she could not express in words--utter aversion for
the “Yank.”
We now resumed our inspection of the interior of the house. The contents
of every drawer were on the floor, every article of value having been
abstracted. Crockery scattered all over the room, suggested to the eye
that it had been used to pelt the ghosts of the witches burned in
Massachusetts a century or two ago. Outrages and indignities too
revolting to mention met the eye at every turn. And the state of affairs
in the parlor baffled description. Not an article had escaped the
destroyer’s touch but the piano, and circumstances which followed proved
that that was regarded as a trophy and only waited removal.
“Vandals! Vandals!” Major Campbell sorrowfully exclaimed, and all his
friends echoed the opinion, and said:
“If the parties who did this work could be identified, we would hang them
as high as Haman.”
But these parties were never identified. They were important adjuncts in
the process of subjugation.
After wishing that the worst was over with us, these gentlemen, who had
come in no friendly mood, bade us good night and took their leave. Thus
the Lord of Hosts, in his infinite mercy, furnished a just tribunal to
pass judgment upon my acts as a Southern woman, and that judgment,
influenced by facts and surroundings, was just and the verdict humane.
CHAPTER XV.
The Battle of the 22d of July, 1864--The Death of Toby.
The excitement incident to the morning and evening of yesterday left my
mother and myself in no frame of mind for repose, and we spent the night
in suspense and painful apprehension of trouble yet to come greater and
more dreadful than that through which we had passed. The medicine left for
Toby by the physician summoned last night was faithfully administered
according to direction, and the morning found him better, though able to
sit up only for a short while at a time. Measles had developed, and we
felt hopeful that it would prove to be a very slight attack; and such it
might have been could we have controlled him properly, but the excitement
and ever-varying scenes in the yard, and as far as vision extended, were
so new and strange to him that, when unobserved, he spent much of his time
at a window commanding the best view of the scene, and, thus exposed to a
current of air, the disease ceased to appear on the surface and a
troublesome cough ensued.
Having been without food since the preceding morning, our thoughts turned
to the usual preparation for breakfast, but alas, those preparations had
to be dispensed of, as we had nothing to prepare. This state of affairs
furnished food for at least serious reflection, and the inquiry, “What are
we to do?” found audible expression. The inexorable demands of hunger
could not be stifled, and we knew that the sick boy needed hot tea and the
nourishment which food alone could give, and yet we had nothing for
ourselves or for him--so complete had been the robbery of the “advance
guards” of the Grand Army of the Republic that not a thing, animate or
inanimate, remained with which to appease our hunger. “What are we to do?”
was iterated and reiterated, and no solution of the question presented
itself. Even then appetizing odors from the camp-fires were diffusing
themselves upon the air and entering our house, but aliens were preparing
the food and we had no part in it. We debated this question, and finally
resolved not to expose ourselves to the jeers and insults of the enemy by
an act of ours that would seem to ask for food; but that we would go to
our Southern citizens in the war-stricken and almost deserted town, and,
if they were not completely robbed, ask them to share their supplies with
us until we could procure aid from outside of the lines so arbitrarily
drawn.
In this dilemma an unexpected relief came to us, and convinced us that
there was good even in Nazareth. A large tray, evidently well-filled, and
covered with a snow-white cloth, was brought in by an Irishman, who handed
a card to my mother containing these words:
“To Mrs. Stokes and daughter, Miss Gay, with compliments of
(MAJOR) CAMPBELL.
“Please accept this small testimonial of regard and respectful sympathy.”
The latter part of the brief message was the sesame that secured
acceptance of this offering, and my mother and myself jointly acknowledged
it with sincere thanks, and again we thought of Elijah and the ravens. The
contents of the tray--coffee, sugar, and tea, sliced ham and a variety of
canned relishes, butter, potatoes, and oatmeal and bread, were removed and
the tray returned. That tray on its humane mission, having found its way
into our house, more than once opportunely reappeared. We enjoyed the
repast thus furnished, although briny tears were mingled with it.
The day passed without any immediate adventure. Great activity prevailed
in army ranks. The coming and going of cavalry; the clatter of sabre and
spur; the constant booming of cannon and report of musketry, all convinced
us that the surrender of Atlanta by the Confederates was quite a matter of
time. A few thousand men, however brave and gallant, could not cope
successfully with “three hundred thousand” who ignored every usage of
civilized warfare, and fought only for conquest.
I cannot say how long this state of affairs lasted before Wheeler’s
Cavalry, supported by Confederate infantry, stole a march upon the Yankees
and put them to flight. Garrard and his staff officers were in our
parlor--their parlor _pro tem._--holding a council; the teamsters and army
followers were lounging about promiscuously, cursing and swearing and
playing cards, and seeming not to notice the approaching artillery until
their attention was called to it, and then they contended that it was
their men firing off blank cartridges. I intuitively felt that a conflict
was on hand. Ma and I held whispered conversations and went from one
window to another, and finally rushed into the yard. Men in the camps
observed our excitement and said, “Don’t be alarmed, it is only our men
firing off their blank cartridges.”
The irony of fate was never more signally illustrated than on this
occasion. I would have laid down my life, yea, a thousand breathing,
pulsing lives of my own, to have witnessed the overthrow of the Yankee
army, and yet, I may have been the means of saving a large portion of it
on that occasion. Dreading for my mother’s sake and for the sake of the
deaf girl and the sick boy, an attack upon the forces which covered our
grounds, I ran to one of the parlor doors and knocked heavily and
excitedly. An officer unlocked the door and opening it said:
“What is it?”
“Our men must be nearly here,” I replied.
“Impossible,” he said, and yet, with a bound he was in the yard, followed
in quick succession by each member of the conclave.
A signal, long, loud, and shrill, awakened the drowsy, and scattered to
the four winds of heaven cards, books and papers; and, in a few minutes,
horses and mules were hitched to wagons, and the mules, wagons and men
were fairly flying from the approach of the Confederates. Women and
children came pouring in from every direction, and the house was soon
filled. Before Garrard’s wagon train was three hundred yards away, our
yard was full of our men--our own dear “Johnnie Rebs.” Oothcaloga Valley
boys, whom I had known from babyhood, kissed, in passing, the hand that
waved the handkerchief. An officer, ah, how grand he looked in gray
uniform, came dashing up and said:
“Go in your cellar and lie down; the Federals are forming a line of
battle, and we, too, will form one that will reach across the grounds, and
your house will be between the two lines. Go at once.”
My mother ran and got Toby’s shoes and put them on for him, and told him
to get up and come with her, and as he went out of the house, tottering, I
threw a blanket over him, and he and Telitha went with ma to our near
neighbor, Mrs. Williams, her cellar being considered safer than ours. I
remained in our house for the twofold purpose of taking care of it, if
possible, and of protecting, to the best of my ability, the precious women
and children who had fled to us for protection. Without thought of myself
I got them all into the room that I thought would be safest, and urged
them to lie down upon the floor and not to move during the battle. Shot
and shell flew in every direction, and the shingles on the roof were
following suit, and the leaves, and the limbs, and the bark of the trees
were descending in showers so heavy as almost to obscure the view of the
contending forces. The roaring of cannon and the sound of musketry blended
in harmony so full and so grand, and the scene was so absorbing, that I
thought not of personal danger, and more than once found myself outside of
the portals ready to rush into the conflict--for was not I a soldier,
enlisted for the war? Nor was I the only restless, intrepid person in the
house on that occasion. An old lady, in whose veins flowed the blood of
the Washingtons, was there, and it was with the greatest difficulty that I
restrained her from going out into the arena of warfare. The traditions of
her ancestors were so interwoven with her life, that, at an age bordering
on four score years and ten, they could not relax their hold upon her; and
she and I might have gone in opposite directions had we fled to the ranks
of the contending armies.
Mine was, no doubt, the only feminine eye that witnessed the complete rout
of the Federals on that occasion. At first I could not realize what they
were doing, and feared some strategic movement; but the “rebel yell” and
the flying blue-coats brought me to a full realization of the situation,
and I too joined in the loud acclaim of victory. And the women and
children, until now panic-stricken and silent as death, joined in the
rejoicing. All the discouragement of the past few weeks fled from me, and
hope revived, and I was happy, oh, so happy! I had seen a splendidly
equipped army, Schofield’s division, I think, ignominiously flee from a
little band of lean, lank, hungry, poorly-clad Confederate soldiers, and I
doubted not an over-ruling Providence would lead us to final victory.
When the smoke of the battle cleared away, my mother and her ebony charge
returned home. Toby quickly sought his pallet, and burning fever soon
rendered him delirious the greater part of the time. In one of his lucid
intervals, he asked me to read the Bible to him, and he told me what he
wanted me to read about, and said:
“Miss Missouri used to read it to me, and I thought it was so pretty.” And
I read to him the story of the cross--of Jesus’ dying love, and he
listened and believed. I said to him:
“My boy, do you think you are going to die?”
“Yes’m, I think I am.”
I bowed my head close to him and wept, oh, how bitterly.
“Miss Mary, don’t you think I’ll go to heaven?” he anxiously asked.
“Toby, my boy, there is one thing I want to tell you; can you listen to
me?”
“Yes’m.”
“I have not always been just to you. I have often accused you of doing
things that I afterwards found you did not do, and then I was not good
enough to acknowledge that I had done wrong. And when you did wrong, I was
not forgiving enough; and more than once I have punished you for little
sins, when I, with all the light before me, was committing greater ones
every day, and going unpunished, save by a guilty conscience. And now, my
boy, I ask you to forgive me. Can you do it?”
“Oh, yes’m!”
“Are you certain that you do? Are you sure that there is no unforgiving
spirit in you towards your poor Miss Mary, who is sorry for all she has
ever done that was wrong towards you.”
“Oh, yes’m!”
“Then, my boy, ask the Lord to forgive you for your sins just as I have
asked you to forgive me, and He will do it for the sake of Jesus, who died
on the cross that sinners might be redeemed from their sins and live with
Him in heaven.”
I can never forget the ineffable love, and faith, and gratitude, depicted
in that poor boy’s face, while I live; and as I held his soft black hand
in mine, I thought of its willing service to “our boys,” and wept to think
I could do no more for him, and that his young life was going out before
he knew the result of the cruel war that was waged by the Abolitionists!
He noticed my grief, and begged me not to feel so badly, and added that he
was willing to die.
I arose from my position by his bed and asked him if there was anything in
the world I could do for him. In reply he said:
“I would like to have a drink of water from the Floyd spring.”
“You shall have it, my boy, just as soon as I can go there and back,” and
I took a pitcher and ran to the spring and filled and refilled it several
times, that it might be perfectly cool, and went back with it as quickly
as possible. He drank a goblet full of this delicious water and said it,
was “so good,” and then added:
“You drink some, too, Miss Mary, and give Miss Polly some.”
I did so, and he was pleased. He coughed less and complained less than he
had done since the change for the worse, and I deluded myself into the
hope that he might yet recover. In a short while he went to sleep, and his
breathing became very hard and his temperature indicated a high degree of
fever. I urged my mother to lie down, and assured her that if I thought
she could do anything for Toby at any time during the night I would call
her.
I sat there alone by that dying boy. Not a movement on his part betrayed
pain. His breathing was hard and at intervals spasmodic. With tender hands
I changed the position of his head, and for a little while he seemed to
breathe easier. But it was only for a little while, and then it was
evident that soon he would cease to breathe at all. I went to my mother
and waked her gently and told her I thought the end was near with Toby,
and hurried back to him. I thought him dead even then; but, after an
interval, he breathed again and again, and all was over. The life had gone
back to the God who gave it, and I doubt not but that it will live with
Him forever. The pathos of the scene can never be understood by those who
have not witnessed one similar to it in all its details, and I will not
attempt to describe it. No timepiece marked the hour, but it was about
midnight, I ween, when death set the spirit of that youthful negro free.
Not a kindred being nor a member of his own race was near to lay loving
hand upon him, or prepare his little body for burial. We stood and gazed
upon him as he lay in death in that desolated house, and thought of his
fidelity and loving interest in our cause and its defenders, and of his
faithful service in our efforts to save something from vandal hands; and
the fountain of tears was broken up and we wept with a peculiar grief over
that lifeless form.
My mother was the first to become calm, and she came very near me and
said, as if afraid to trust her voice:
“Wouldn’t it be well to ask Eliza Williams and others to come and ‘lay him
out?’”
Before acting on this suggestion I went into another room and waked
Telitha and took her into the chamber of death. A dim and glimmering light
prevented her from taking in the full import of the scene at first; but I
took her near the couch, and, pointing to him, I said:
“Dead!--Dead!”
She repeated interrogatively, and, when she fully realized that suc
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