The Southern Soldier Boy: A Thousand Shots for the Confederacy

Of the twenty-five of Company F that died that summer of sickness, I will mention four of my mess, who were all good and true soldiers and participated in all the battles up to squat. Thomas Davis, Riley Barnett, John Ledford and Thomas L. Nowlin. While I was away, Ransom’s Brigade was in the battle of Ream’s Station on Weldon railroad, in August, and Louis Justice and Migamon Haynes were killed. Sergt. F. M. Stockton, Luther Lutz and William Chitwood, and probably others, were wounded.

I got back to the company the 15th of October, after a sixty-days furlough, and found our brigade resting left of Appomattox River. Here we remained through the long, hard winter, under fire day and night. During this time Lieutenant Purse was wounded, also Wesley Richards and Sergeant William London mortally wounded. I can not see how we escaped so well, but we learned to lay low, dig holes and contrive bomb-proofs. Then Spencer Crowder used to say that we had Uncle Johnnie London to pray for us. Spencer tried to quit swearing, and we thought he had succeeded, but the last battle we were in he cursed the Yankees as bad as ever. We fortified our position and had portholes for our sharpshooters made of sand bangs and iron plates. Besides the hard fare, we suffered for want of fuel. Our company only got eight or ten sticks of green pine wood per day most of the time. During the winter we got coffee and some canned beef, which helped us greatly. Governor Vance tried to give us a Christmas dinner, but it was only a quart of little Irish potatoes. Our wages were raised from $11 to $15 per month, but they quit paying us at all and owed us for three or four months at the close. The following prices prevailed: Bacon, $10 lb.; pork and beef, $5 lb.; peas, $1 qt.; corn meal, $1.25 qt.; rice, $1 lb.; salt, $1; sweet potatoes, medium, $1 each, and everything else in proportion.

On the 15th of January, 1865, I was detailed to report to General Ransom’s headquarters for special duty, and met a force of several others from brigade. We were taken in command by Lieut. A. Clate Sharp, of Forty-ninth, to boat wood down the river and canal for the men in the trenches. We were soon comfortably quartered at our wagon yard. Here we went seven miles up the canal and two miles up the river into another canal, where we got the wood. This was a real picnic all the time. With three men to the boat, we would bring down four cords of wood on a boat. While out there I would often see General Lee, nearly always by himself, riding around leisurely. I got rations from home and fared sumptuously, while the poor fellows in the ditches were having it rough. They were now trimmed out to one man to the yard. About the first of March about a dozen of Company F concluded they had enough of it, and all started for home, taking their guns with them. They had gotten information from me that there were no guards next to the river, and succeeded in getting through. I will not name them here. They nearly all had been good and faithful soldiers who had borne more hardships than I. They had been in those bleak and bloody trenches for nearly nine months. The annual spring campaign was coming on, and every private knew that resistance could not much longer be sustained. On the 15th of March my detail ended, and we were relieved from the ditches and went to Hotches Run, ten miles away.

Grant was pressing Lee’s right, and about 3 a. m. on March 25th, Lee attacked Grant in front of our old position next to the river and carried it with little or no loss. We went in to hold it, and after day they attacked us with a heavy force, and holding the lines on both our flanks, after two hours of hard fighting, turned our right flank and compelled our right to fall back or surrender. The enemy held a fort close on our left, and when they came swarming over the hill on our right and pressing our front we had to surrender with two thousand on that end of the line. All of Company F that were together, thirty-four in all, including Captain and Lieutenant Grigg, Lieutenant Dr. V. J. Palmer, had been in front of our line, and seeing the predicament, slipped out and escaped without coming back through the company. George Thompson was mortally wounded. This was the last of Company F, except five or six rallied by Lieutenant Palmer. The spring before we started out with one hundred, this spring we had forty men in line.

We took our position an hour or two before day. The Yankees had three strong lines of earthworks, with stockade in front, but they only had a skirmish line holding it, while their comfortable encampments were in the rear. We could easily have taken the lines on our left to Appomattox River when we first went in, but it was soon strongly reinforced. As we were marched back to the rear we met battery after battery of field artillery coming in. An artilleryman said, “Johnnies, if you had held them works an hour longer we would have had five hundred guns and cannons playing on you.” We were soon back in our camps and marched around through them for three miles to General Meade’s headquarters. In some camps the men were playing ball and frolicking like no enemy was near. Others were falling into line of march; others had muskets stacked ready to fall in at a moment’s notice. Far back in the rear endless columns were marching to the left flank of their lines to outflank Lee’s right. At Meade’s headquarters we were joined by two thousand more of our men who had been captured that morning on Hotche’s Run. About 2 p. m. we were reviewed by General Grant and President Lincoln, riding horseback, followed by a troop of cavalry and a number of fine carriages containing officers and ladies. They marched by us and returned and came back by us, where we were in the open along the road. We were then put on some flat or freight cars and shipped to City Point. There we were put inside their large barrack inclosure where their own men were kept under the same guard with us. The next morning they gave us some boiled fat pork and a handful of hardtack. As we came down we passed through Sheridan’s cavalry camp of thirty thousand strong.

On Sunday evening, March 26th, General McHenry, a white-headed old man, commanding the post, got upon a barrel and made a speech. He said the war would soon be over, and that President Lincoln had offered amnesty to all who would lay down their arms or desert the Confederate army and come over to the Union side, and that they would be allowed to go North and work. He said that no doubt some of us had wished to desert and quit fighting and had not had a chance to do so, and now he would give us a chance to take the oath of allegiance to the United States if we would volunteer to do so. He would send such up to Washington and see if President Lincoln would accept it and allow them to take the oath and go North and be free from war. When the call for deserter volunteers was arranged, the greatest fun started among the four thousand prisoners. They would make all kinds of humorous remarks about the deserter volunteers. When one would step out, “You are welcome to him; he is as cowardly as any of your hirelings. There goes another; we are glad to get rid of him, for he never was any good,” etc. About thirty volunteered and were removed from their fellows. Then he called for three hundred volunteers who wished to be exchanged at once – sent up to Richmond, where they could go to fighting again. We raised a yell, and about two hundred rushed forward. He then called, “Come on, all who want more fighting.” There was much stir, comrades hunting up each other so as to keep together. Company F rallied and joined the fighting column, except five or six, who held back and afterwards went up to Washington with the deserter volunteers. We were marched to the wharf and put on a steamboat that carried us to Point Lookout Prison, Maryland, instead of Richmond for exchange. At the time we volunteered so briskly we did not believe we would be exchanged, and its very evident that not many wished to be, for they all believed that the war would be over in a few weeks.

While on the wharf a nice, clever old citizen came up to me, a beardless boy, and entered into a conversation. He said, “It is very fortunate for you that you were taken prisoner. You are in the hands of a civilized and Christian people who will treat you well and you will not have to fight any more. The war will be over in six months, and you can then return to your loved ones at home.” I heard him patiently, and he felt he was making a good impression on me. Then I retorted: “You are putting it off for six months now, are you? I thought you said you would whip us in three months at the start.” He turned away and seemed to lose interest in me. I was from the inside and could have told him the war would be over in six weeks.

We had a good voyage. Stopped a half hour at Fortress Monroe, where there was a great deal of shipping, including war vessels of all nations. We arrived at Point Lookout, Md., at sunset. Our names were recorded and we were overhauled and ushered into prison. There were about three thousand there when we arrived, on the first boat load of the spring campaign. We were assigned quarters in tents already occupied. I thought they would be glad to see us and hear from home, but they seemed mad and asked very few questions that night. But we soon learned that talking was not allowed after dark, as white guards walked the streets inside, while negro sentinels were on the outside parapet. We were always interested in the new-comers, who continued to come for two or three weeks, until the number was increased to twenty-three thousand. Point Lookout lays between Chesapeake Bay and Potomac River, and is nearly surrounded by water. The prison on the Chesapeake side was drained into that bay, and was an ideal place for a military prison, and was considered one of the most healthful prisons. It was enclosed by a high plank fence with two gates, opening to bay and one for entrance on southeast corner. It was divided into ten or twelve divisions, with nearly as many cook-houses, one chapel and school-house, eight wells, no two of which contains the same kind of water. The water was strong coperas, alum, and some nearly fair freestone. The Confederate government had an agent there, a Methodist preacher by the name of Morgan and a South Carolinian. His business was to look after the welfare of the prisoners, to distribute clothing, etc., very little of which was distributed after we got there. He ran the schools and regulated religious worship in the chapel. We got for a day’s ration three-quarters of a pound of loaf bread and six crackers, one pint of soup with a spoonful or two of beans and potatoes in it. About one-quarter pound of fat boiled pork two days, one-half pound fresh beef or mutton one day, and one-half pound of fish (mackeral or codfish) four days in each week. We had no fuel and had to eat fish raw. We got plenty of soap, but nothing to warm water with to wash. We had access to the bay for washing and bathing. There were several details to work on outside of prison, for which we got tobacco and some extra rations. When outside about the wharves we could get a little wood, such as barrel staves, chips and pieces of planks. There were two or three hundred men taken out every fair day to work, and I got out a good deal, was on a regular detail for two or three weeks, which was a great help. The hospital grounds adjoined the prison, and many were in the hospital. It was reported that the death rate some days was more than twenty. Only one of our company died there – Benjamin Jenkins.

Lee’s surrender was celebrated by firing signal guns for twenty-four hours. Then Lincoln’s death was honored by all flags half-mast and firing one-half-hour guns for twenty-four hours.

Those fellows who volunteered to take the oath and were sent to Washington had been refused by President Lincoln, but they were all discharged first. Major A. G. Brady was in command of the post. We got no mail or papers. There was a bulletin board for posting orders and news.

There were negroes who had been captured in the Confederate army that remained true and preferred staying with us instead of taking the oath and going free. Also a large number of English sailors, blockade runners, West India negroes, and political prisoners all together. When they began to discharge us about the 6th of June, thirty-two were called out at a time and stood under the Stars and Stripes and took the oath of allegiance together and subscribed to the same in the record books. I got out the 12th of June, and was landed in Richmond on the night of the 13th. Here we were bountifully supplied with rations and given railroad transportation. Everything had now changed. Richmond and all the principal towns were swarming with Federal troops. We remained in Richmond two days on account of a washout, and did not reach home until the 20th of June.

I will state that Lieut. V. J. Palmer and the four or five men with him were captured at Five Forks when the lines were broken. About the first of April, Lieutenant Palmer had his men to load for him, and he stood on the parapet and fired as fast as the guns could be handed to him, until he was surrounded. In the last battle, on the 25th March, 1865, Lieutenant Palmer, with several others, took a position in front of the lines in some narrow drain ditches, where they could keep up a continual fire, while the main line only fired when the enemy advanced in force. During this time T. J. Dixon shot down a brave Yankee at close range, and said, “Boys, don’t shoot him any more.” L. A. Bridges brought down several of the bravest Yankees at close range. The Yankee who took Bridges’ gun said, “You have been using it; it is pretty hot.” Bridges said, “Yes, I got it from you and have made the best use of it I could. You can have it; I reckon it belongs to you.”

Among those who were never seriously wounded or sick, but were always in their places, were First Sergt. Andy London, who stood at the head of Company F in every battle; Sergt. H. Dedmon, Spencer A. Crowder, Jno. A. Tesseneer, Flay Gantt, Samuel Hasten, Graham Wilson, T. J. Hoard, Sabert Hoard, Joseph Beam, David Peeler and L. A. Bridges. Lieut. V. J. Palmer and Alfred Grigg were always at their posts except while disabled by wounds. Peter Price died last July, James Finch died last year, Lieut. Alfred Grigg moved to Kentucky, Jno. Grigg to Louisiana, Frank Hasten to Tennessee.

Supplemental to History of Company F

The names of Joseph Hasten and Ephraim Wilson, who died early in the service, and Jesse Willis, a senior recruit who served faithfully to the end, were omitted. These are all I can get up. My comrades at this time can give me but little information. People ask how I can recollect so well after so many years. I kept a diary of all important events. Then my mother, who is still living, has all the letters I wrote home during my service in the army. I had nine first cousins in the regular army, and only two survived the war, and they were both severely wounded twice, and I am the only survivor, though I have an uncle living, my mother’s brother, Dr. Thos. L. Carson, who was at General Lee’s surrender.

Confederate Monument at Shelby

The Soldier’s Monument at Shelby seems to be all that could be desired from anyone’s standpoint. There’s nothing boastful, nothing flattering or inconsistent. It simply expresses a patriotic duty performed in the greatest crisis in the history of our country. That generation passed through an ordeal second to none in the annals of modern history. Their descendants by whom it is erected have no apologies to make. The massive granite column, to last for ages, will tell the simple story of pride in the heroic fortitude of such ancestry – and will ever be an inspiration to the rising manhood of coming generations. It is most fitting that it is erected now after more than forty years of candid deliberation. If it had been erected thirty years ago it would only have represented our fallen heroes. Ten years ago, when it was first suggested to rear a monument for all Confederate soldiers, living and deceased, the living generally protested, thinking it egotistical or boastful to erect a monument to themselves. But the Daughters were too enthusiastic to wait for all the old soldiers to die, and now all old soldiers approve their course and are most grateful for the monument to their comrades, which by and by will stand for all.

The statue on the monument is a good specimen of the stalwart private soldier, and would well represent Private Charles Blanton, of the Fifty-fifth N. C. Regiment, who once captured fourteen prisoners on the skirmish line. Having heard his comrades tell of this heroic deed a few years ago, I asked Mr. Blanton how he did it. He said: “We were ordered to drive the Yankee skirmishers back and locate their battle line. As we advanced on them we saw several taking shelter in a rifle pit, when six or eight of us made a rush to take the pit, and when I got there they ducked down and looked scared, and I ordered them to thrown down their guns and get out of there quick, and they obeyed promptly. As I stepped behind them I saw that I was alone – the others having all been shot down – and seeing their battle line laying flat close by, ordered my prisoners to double-quick to the rear, and I trotted them out all right. When I commanded them to surrender, I thought my comrades were close by, and I had them under good control before I knew any better.”

Mrs. Stonewall Jackson refusing a $1,200 pension, while indigent widows and veterans only get a pittance, may cause them to get $150,000 more than heretofore. It is the happiest thought that our countrymen still appreciate most highly the principle that money can not buy. Mrs. Jackson belongs to history, linked to a name that will live through the ages, an inspiration to the highest ideals of patriotic devotion, that bring most desirable achievements that untold generations will be proud to honor.

A Patriotic Recruit

The soldiers life, even in the most strenuous and dangerous campaigns, finds some relief in jest and laughter, like flowers strewn along the thorny paths of hardships. When you hear an old soldier boast of his exploits and miraculous escapes, you can credit him for having been both a good forager and a good dodger. The best soldiers are ambitious, patriotic, jovial, patient and uncomplaining.

When our Company F, Fifty-sixth Regiment, had been in the Camp of Instruction a few weeks, a young, enthusiastic recruit came in. He showed all the marks of a good soldier, even to a very fine opinion of himself. He was eager to take a stand in the front rank from the start; and he was speedily supplied with the regulation equipment. Then he called on some of the boys at a game of marbles, who interrogated him about his outfit, and inquired if he had got his marbles. He: “Do I get marbles?” They: “Of course every soldier is allowed a set of marbles.” He: “And where do I get my marbles?” “You will find your marbles at the Colonel’s tent, but when you go after them you must salute the Colonel.” He: “Salute how?” “This way: Catch your hat with this hand, raise the other hand, fingers extended, and strike out this way.” After practicing him for awhile, they told him that would do – he had it right. Then he bolted for the Colonel’s tent with all the assurance with which he would accost a township constable. The Colonel was a West Pointer and as dignified and austere as the Czar of all the Russias. After saluting the Colonel, he said, “Colonel, I have just come in and drawed my outfit and have called in to get my marbles.” The Colonel: “The h – ll you say! Report to your quarters at once or I’ll have you put in the guard-house.” When he came back, he looked like a bucket of cold water had been thrown on his patriotic enthusiasm. They inquired, “Did you get your marbles?” He: “No!” “What did the Colonel say?” “He cussed me and threatened to put me in the guard-house.”

The reader can imagine what a laugh they had at the breaking in of a real good soldier, who proved faithful to the end. But ever afterwards, whenever he got on a “high hoss,” some one would ask him what the Colonel said when he went after his marbles.

A Bad Case of Itch

In the fall of 1863, while my regiment, the Fifty-sixth North Carolina, was on detail service arresting conscripts and deserters in the middle and western counties, our company headquarters then being at Hannah’s Cross Roads in Davidson County, a stout, strapping boy of 18 came from Catawba County to join the army with us. He had two uncles in our company who were off with a detachment; and he, being a stranger to all present, and noticing that he had a bad case of itch, all stood aloof from him. After he had been in camp a few days Iley Gantt got a short furlough to visit his sick wife. He, noticing Gantt’s arrangements for going home, inquired what he was going home for. Ike Powell said, “We are sending Gantt home because he has got the each.” He: “Well, I’ve got the each.” P.: “Yes, I see you have, and what did you come here with the each for. We’ve got trouble enough here without the each.” He: “Well, if you say so I’ll go home too, for I am getting mighty tired of this place anyhow.” P.: “Well, that would be the best thing you could do.” He: “But I’ve eat up all the rations I brought from home, and I ’haint got nothing cooked to eat, and I can’t cook – never cooked any in my life.” P.: “Then I’ll tell you what you do; you go to Capt. Grigg and tell him you want a man detailed to cook some rations to do you home; tell him you are going with Gantt, and that you will stay away from here until you are plumb well of the each.” The young recruit bolted to the Captain, who soon set him straight on army rules and regulations.

Longstreet’s Corps Was on the Way to Chickamauga

The same fall I was at High Point, N. C., and saw Longstreet’s Corps pass. The trains all stopped there and I mingled and talked much with them. I never saw soldiers in higher spirits. As they had come through Raleigh, they had destroyed the late ex-Governor W. W. Holden’s Raleigh Standard printing press. They exhibited papers fastened to sticks like flags, with handfuls of type. Holden had been advocating peace and they considered him a traitor to the South. They said those western Yankees had been having things their own way out there, but Lee’s men were going to give them something that they would not forget soon. “We will put them in a trot like we have been chasing them out of Virginia.” They were traveling on freight and flat-cars, with as many on top of freight boxes as inside.

About a week after that we were at High Point again, conveying some arrested conscripts to Raleigh, when train load after train load of Federal prisoners passed going from Chickamauga to Richmond. The trains stopped and we talked with those western prisoners and found them very sassy and determined about the Union. One big, red-whiskered fellow said to me: “What you fellers doing back here so far in the rear?” We replied: “We have plenty of men at the front to attend to you fellows. We are just resting and having a good time.” He replied, “Yes, d – n you; I guess you are back here hunting for conscripts and trying to force good Union men into your d – d army.” His train pulled out and we let him go at that, but thinking from the grit he displayed that he must be a Tennessean or Kentuckian.

Shooting an Outlaw

While operating in Randolph County, N. C., in September, 1864, we wounded in the foot and captured a man who had not been in the army but was said to head a band of outlaws. His name was Northcut. He was tried by a little drumhead court marshal and shot on short notice one mile north of Ashboro as we were leaving that section for Wilkes County, where there was a strong Union sentiment hard to hold down. After operating in the mountains several months, where much apple brandy, fat beef, milk and honey abounded, we returned to Randolph and the adjoining counties of Davidson, Moore, Montgomery and Chatham, where there was much work to do. Here we began pressing property, especially horses and feed, from the disloyal to force them to bring in their conscript sons, and soon a number of our company was mounted, only intending to use the horses while operating in that vicinity; but Governor Vance, being advised of it, complained to the Confederate War Department and threatened to turn his militia loose on us and drive us from the State if such conduct was not stopped and all property pressed promptly turned over to the original owners – and we had to come down off our high horses and take it afoot again. Up to that time I had not developed quite courage enough to steal a horse, but was caught red-handed with a good mount in this temporary “critter company.” – a furloughed man having given me his horse. So my dignity was shocked when I had to come down from my self-promoted position to a flatfooted infantryman again.