Co. Aytch, or a Side Show of the Big Show

by Sam Watkins

  I JINE THE CAVALRY

  When we got to Charleston, on the Hiwassee River, there we found the First Tennessee Cavalry and Ninth Battalion, both of which had been made up principally in Maury county, and we knew all the boys. We had a good old-fashioned handshaking all around. Then I wanted to “jine the cavalry.” Captain Asa G. Freeman had an extra horse, and I got on him and joined the cavalry for several days, but all the time some passing cavalryman would make some jocose remark about “Here is a webfoot who wants to jine the cavalry, and has got a bayonet on his gun and a knapsack on his back.” I felt like I had got into the wrong pen, but anyhow I got to ride all of three days. I remember that Mr. Willis B. Embry gave me a five-pound package of Kallickanick smoking tobacco, for which I was very grateful.17 I think he was quartermaster of the First Tennessee Cavalry, and as good a man and as clever a person as I ever knew. None knew him but to love him. I was told that he was killed by a lot of Yankee soldiers after he had surrendered to them, all the time begging for his life, asking them please not kill him. But He that noteth the sparrow's fall doeth all things well. Not one ever falls to the ground without His consent.18

  * * *

  1. Since Union General Halleck had one hundred twenty-five thousand men behind entrenchments at Corinth, Bragg had no hope of attacking the federals with his army of forty-five thousand. Instead, he decided to co-operate with General Edmund Kirby-Smith in East Tennessee for a two-column march into Kentucky. Earlier cavalry raids into the state returned with fresh recruits, suggesting that if the Confederate armies moved into Kentucky, their numbers would swell with local sympathizers. Such a movement would also force at least a part of the Union army to follow them, thereby enabling Bragg to meet his opponent in battle on more even numerical terms.

  2. Since federal troops occupied the junction at Corinth, there was no direct railroad route from Tupelo to Chattanooga. Bragg was forced to transport his army in the roundabout way described by Watkins to reach Chattanooga by railroad and then march on foot into Kentucky.

  3. While it is true that the Rebels were greeted enthusiastically, there were few recruits. Most Kentuckians prudently waited to see if the Confederates were going to be able to remain in the state. At the least, Bragg would be required to first demonstrate he could win a decisive victory over Buell's entire army. By the end of September, the Rebs had defeated Union forces at the Kentucky towns of Richmond and Munfordville. But those were victories over small units. The showdown between Bragg and Buell came on October 8, 1862, at Perryville, after which Bragg retreated.

  4. During the secession crisis of 1861, Union men in Kentucky organized a training camp to prepare for war. The land was leased from a man named Richard Robinson and was located near Nicholasville in the Bluegrass Region. When Bragg invaded the state a year-and-a-half later, it was a supply depot.

  5. In mid-July, General Halleck was transferred to Washington, DC, as general-in-chief of all Union armies. Before leaving, he split the Corinth command between Buell and Grant. Buell was to go east to Chattanooga, while Grant would move south to Vicksburg, Mississippi. Bragg left soldiers under Generals Earl Van Dorn and Sterling Price to deal with Grant, while he took the rest of the army to Kentucky in order to divert Buell from Chattanooga.

  6. September 17, 1862. The number of surrendered federals was forty-two hundred. The battle of Perryville would be about three weeks later, on October 8. The capture of Munfordville gave Bragg a significant advantage because it severed the railroad line between Nashville and Louisville. Buell was dependent on the route to get to Louisville before the Confederates. However, after occupying Munfordville for a few days, Bragg abandoned it in search of supplies. That left an open door for Buell to move rapidly north without having to attack entrenched Confederates, which would have been required if Munfordville remained occupied by Rebels.

  7. When Bragg and Buell met at Perryville, Bragg did not realize he was facing most of Buell's army. There were only sixteen thousand Confederate combatants, compared to twenty-two thousand federal troops. Buell suffered more casualties, but Bragg withdrew from the field. Watkins's brigade was the most heavily engaged of all Confederate brigades in this battle. It suffered nearly 750 casualties, whereas the Confederate brigade with the second largest number of casualties lost only 425. As the “Battle of Perryville: 3:00 p.m.” map on page 58 illustrates, the 1st Tennessee regiment was at the far right of the Confederate line. It would first drive General William Terrill's infantry off Open Knob and then attack General John Starkweather's troops on “Starkweather Hill.”

  8. This is a first-person description of the fight for Starkweather Hill, considered by historian Kenneth W. Noe as the “high water mark of the Confederacy in the western theater.” It is diagramed in the “Battle of Perryville: 3:45 p.m.” map.

  9. The battle was a strategic federal victory because Bragg was forced to retreat and abandon Kentucky. Federal casualties were forty-three hundred, while Confederate losses were thirty-four hundred.

  10. In an unrelated memoir, Confederate Private: Front and Rear, William Fletcher explained to a younger brother that he did not want the boy to join his unit because each brother would be too inclined to aid a wounded brother during combat. Fletcher had witnessed too many instances in which an unhurt brother would get killed while trying to help a wounded or dying brother.

  11. Open Knob.

  12. This statement implies that Feild had a repeating rifle, but very few such rifles were available at the time. Although a few Henry repeating rifles were used by both sides in the Kentucky campaign, they held sixteen bullets, not seven.

  13. Without more recruits, General Bragg could not risk keeping a Confederate army in Kentucky. Union forces were massing from Midwestern states. A contemporary Chicago Tribune article painted a realistic picture of the Confederate troops in Kentucky: “The majority are underage and but few of them have shoes. They are miserably clothed, dirty and half starved.” Bragg himself added of Kentucky, “in seven weeks occupation, with twenty thousand guns and ammunition burdening our train, we only succeeded in getting about two thousand men to join us and at least half of them…deserted.” Both quotes from “Frank van der Linden, General Bragg's Impossible Dream: Take Kentucky,” Civil War Times (November/December 2006), accessed at http://www.historynet.com/braxton-bragg.

  14. A “piscatorial implement” is a fishing pole.

  15. Sam is making a biblical reference to Genesis 9:20–27, in which Ham's father, Noah, placed a curse on Ham's son, Canaan. Originally the objective of the story was to justify subjugation of Canaanites to the Israelites, but racial interpretations were later applied to justify the enslavement of blacks.

  16. Sam knew some mythology. Sinbad encountered the Old Man of the Sea in his fifth voyage. Typically the Old Man would trick travelers into letting him ride on their shoulders for a short distance, but thereafter refuse to release his grip. Sinbad was able to shake him off by first getting him intoxicated.

  17. “Kallickanick” refers to the dried leaves and bark of certain plants, sometimes with tobacco added, formerly smoked by some North American Indians.

  18. This is a jumbled biblical reference to Matthew 10:29.

  SIX

  MURFREESBORO

  WE CAME FROM KNOXVILLE to Chattanooga, and seemed destined to make a permanent stay here. We remained several months, but soon we were on the tramp again.

  From Chattanooga, Bragg's army went to Murfreesboro.

  The Federal army was concentrating at Nashville. There was no rest for the weary. Marches and battles were the order of the day.

  Our army stopped at Murfreesboro. Our advanced outpost was established at Lavergne. From time to time different regiments were sent forward to do picket duty. I was on picket at the time the advance was made by Rosecrans.1

  At the time mentioned, I was standing about two hundred yards off the road, the main body of the pickets being on the Nashville and Murfreesboro turnpike, and commanded by Lieutenant Hardy Murfr
ee, of the Rutherford Rifles.

  I had orders to allow no one to pass. In fact, no one was expected to pass at this point, but while standing at my post, a horseman rode up behind me. I halted him, and told him to go down to the main picket on the road and pass, but he seemed so smiling that I thought he knew me, or had a good joke to tell me. He advanced up, and pulling a piece of paper out of his pocket, handed it to me to read. It was an order from General Leonidas Polk to allow the bearer to pass.2

  I read it, and looked up to hand it back to him, when I discovered that he had a pistol cocked and leveled in my face, and says he, “Drop that gun; you are my prisoner.” I saw there was no use in fooling about it. I knew if I resisted he would shoot me, and I thought then that he was about to perform that detestable operation. I dropped the gun.3

  I did not wish to spend my winter in a Northern prison, and what was worse, I would be called a deserter from my post of duty.

  The Yankee picket lines were not a half mile off. I was perfectly willing to let the spy go on his way rejoicing—for such he was—but he wanted to capture a Rebel.

  And I had made up my mind to think likewise. There I was, a prisoner sure, and no mistake about it.

  His pistol was leveled, and I was ordered to march. I was afraid to halloo to the relief, and you may be sure I was in a bad fix.

  Finally says I, “Let's play quits. I think you are a soldier; you look like a gentleman. I am a videt; you know the responsibility resting on me. You go your way, and leave me here. Is it a bargain?”

  Says he, “I would not trust a Secesh on his word, oath, or bond. March, I say.”

  I soon found out that he had caught sight of the relief on the road, and was afraid to shoot.4

  I quickly made up my mind. My gun was at my feet, and one step would get it. I made a quick glance over my shoulder, and grabbed at my gun. He divined my motive, and fired. The ball missed its aim. He put spurs to his horse, but I pulled down on him, and almost tore the fore shoulder of his horse entirely off, but I did not capture the spy, though I captured the horse, bridle and saddle. Major Allen, of the Twenty-seventh Tennessee Regiment, took the saddle and bridle, and gave me the blanket. I remember the blanket had the picture of a “big lion” on it, and it was almost new. When we fell back, as the Yankee sharpshooters advanced, we left the poor old horse nipping the short, dry grass. I saw a Yankee skirmisher run up and grab the horse and give a whoop as if he had captured a Rebel horse.

  But they continued to advance upon us, we firing and retreating slowly. We had several pretty sharp brushes with them that day. I remember that they had to cross an open field in our front, and we were lying behind a fence, and as they advanced, we kept up firing, and would run them back every time, until they brought up a regiment that whooped, and yelled, and charged our skirmish line, and then we fell back again. I think we must have killed a good many in the old field, because we were firing all the time at the solid line as they advanced upon us.

  BATTLE OF MURFREESBORO

  The next day, the Yankees were found out to be advancing. Soon they came in sight of our picket. We kept falling back and firing all day, and were relieved by another regiment about dark. We rejoined our regiment. Line of battle was formed on the north bank of Stone's River—on the Yankee side. Bad generalship, I thought.5

  It was Christmas. John Barleycorn was general-in-chief. Our generals, and colonels, and captains, had kissed John a little too often. They couldn't see straight. It was said to be buckeye whisky. They couldn't tell our own men from Yankees. The private could, but he was no general, you see. But here they were—the Yankees—a battle had to be fought. We were ordered forward. I was on the skirmish line. We marched plumb into the Yankee lines, with their flags flying.6

  I called Lieutenant-Colonel Frierson's attention to the Yankees, and he remarked, “Well, I don't know whether they are Yankees or not, but if they are, they will come out of there mighty quick.”

  The Yankees marched over the hill out of sight.

  We were ordered forward to the attack. We were right upon the Yankee line on the Wilkerson turnpike. The Yankees were shooting our men down by scores. A universal cry was raised, “You are firing on your own men.” “Cease firing, cease firing,” I hallooed; in fact, the whole skirmish line hallooed, and kept on telling them that they were Yankees, and to shoot; but the order was to cease firing, you are firing on your own men.7

  Captain James, of Cheatham's staff, was sent forward and killed in his own yard. We were not twenty yards off from the Yankees, and they were pouring the hot shot and shells right into our ranks; and every man was yelling at the top of his voice, “Cease firing, you are firing on your own men; cease firing, you are firing on your own men.”

  Oakley, color-bearer of the Fourth Tennessee Regiment, ran right up in the midst of the Yankee line with his colors, begging his men to follow. I hallooed till I was hoarse, “They are Yankees, they are Yankees; shoot, they are Yankees.”

  The crest occupied by the Yankees was belching loud with fire and smoke, and the Rebels were falling like leaves of autumn in a hurricane. The leaden hailstorm swept them off the field. They fell back and re-formed. General Cheatham came up and advanced.8

  I did not fall back, but continued to load and shoot, until a fragment of a shell struck me on the arm, and then a minnie ball passed through the same paralyzing my arm, and wounded and disabled me. General Cheatham, all the time, was calling on the men to go forward, saying, “Come on, boys, and follow me.”9

  The impression that General Benjamin F. Cheatham made upon my mind, leading the charge on the Wilkerson turnpike, I will never forget. I saw either victory or death written on his face. When I saw him leading our brigade, although I was wounded at the time, I felt sorry for him, he seemed so earnest and concerned, and as he was passing me I said, “Well, General, if you are determined to die, I'll die with you.” We were at that time at least a hundred yards in advance of the brigade, Cheatham all the time calling upon the men to come on. He was leading the charge in person.

  Then it was that I saw the power of one man, born to command, over a multitude of men then almost routed and demoralized. I saw and felt that he was not fighting for glory, but that he was fighting for his country because he loved that country, and he was willing to give his life for his country and the success of our cause. He deserves a wreath of immortality, and a warm place in every Southron's heart, for his brave and glorious example on that bloody battlefield of Murfreesboro. Yes, his history will ever shine in beauty and grandeur as a name among the brightest in all the galaxy of leaders in the history of our cause.

  Now, another fact I will state, and that is, when the private soldier was ordered to charge and capture the twelve pieces of artillery, heavily supported by infantry, Maney's brigade raised a whoop and yell, and swooped down on those Yankees like a whirl-a-gust of woodpeckers in a hail storm, paying the blue coated rascals back with compound interest; for when they did come, every man's gun was loaded, and they marched upon the blazing crest in solid file, and when they did fire, there was a sudden lull in the storm of battle, because the Yankees were nearly all killed. I cannot remember now of ever seeing more dead men and horses and captured cannon, all jumbled together, than that scene of blood and carnage and battle on the Wilkerson turnpike. The ground was literally covered with blue coats dead; and, if I remember correctly, there were eighty dead horses.

  By this time our command had re-formed, and charged the blazing crest.

  The spectacle was grand. With cheers and shouts they charged up the hill, shooting down and bayoneting the flying cannoneers, General Cheatham, Colonel Feild and Joe Lee cutting and slashing with their swords. The victory was complete. The whole left wing of the Federal army was driven back five miles from their original position. Their dead and wounded were in our lines, and we had captured many pieces of artillery, small arms, and prisoners.10

  When I was wounded, the shell and shot that struck me, knocked me winding. I said, �
�O, O, I'm wounded,” and at the same time I grabbed my arm. I thought it had been torn from my shoulder. The brigade had fallen back about two hundred yards, when General Cheatham's presence reassured them, and they soon were in line and ready to follow so brave and gallant a leader, and had that order of “cease firing, you are firing on your own men,” not been given, Maney's brigade would have had the honor of capturing eighteen pieces of artillery, and ten thousand prisoners. This I do know to be a fact.11

  As I went back to the field hospital, I overtook another man walking along. I do not know to what regiment he belonged, but I remember of first noticing that his left arm was entirely gone. His face was as white as a sheet. The breast and sleeve of his coat had been torn away, and I could see the frazzled end of his shirt sleeve, which appeared to be sucked into the wound. I looked at it pretty close, and I said “Great God!” for I could see his heart throb, and the respiration of his lungs. I was filled with wonder and horror at the sight. He was walking along, when all at once he dropped down and died without a struggle or a groan. I could tell of hundreds of such incidents of the battlefield, but tell only this one, because I remember it so distinctly.

  ROBBING A DEAD YANKEE

  In passing over the battlefield, I came across a dead Yankee colonel. He had on the finest clothes I ever saw, a red sash and fine sword. I particularly noticed his boots. I needed them, and had made up my mind to wear them out for him. But I could not bear the thought of wearing dead men's shoes. I took hold of the foot and raised it up and made one trial at the boot to get it off. I happened to look up, and the colonel had his eyes wide open, and seemed to be looking at me. He was stone dead, but I dropped that foot quick. It was my first and last attempt to rob a dead Yankee.

  After the battle was over at Murfreesboro, that night, John Tucker and myself thought that we would investigate the contents of a fine brick mansion in our immediate front, but between our lines and the Yankees', and even in advance of our videts. Before we arrived at the house we saw a body of Yankees approaching, and as we started to run back they fired upon us. Our pickets had run in and reported a night attack. We ran forward, expecting that our men would recognize us, but they opened fire upon us. I never was as bad scared in all my whole life, and if any poor devil ever prayed with fervency and true piety, I did it on that occasion. I thought, “I am between two fires.” I do not think that a flounder or pancake was half as flat as I was that night; yea, it might be called in music, low flat.