PREFACE.
For the gratification of my old comrades and in grateful memory of their constant kindness during all our years of comradeship these records have been written. The writer claims no special qualification for the task save as it may lie in the fact that no other survivor of the Company has so large a fund of material from which to draw for such a purpose. In addition to a war journal, whose entries cover all my four years service, nearly every letter written by me from camp in those eventful years has been preserved. Whatever lack, therefore, these pages may possess on other lines, they furnish at least a truthful portrait of what I saw and felt as a soldier. It has been my purpose to picture the lights rather than the shadows of our soldier life. War is a terribly serious business and yet camp life has its humor as well as its pathos, its comedy as well as its tragedy, its sunshine as well as its shadows.
As Co. B, of the Oglethorpes was an outgrowth of the original organization, its muster roll before and after reorganization, with a condensed sketch of its war service has been given. For this information I am indebted to the kindness of Mr. Frank H. Miller and Mr. Brad Merry, as I am to the former also for data pertaining to the early history of the Oglethorpes.
Aside from the motive already named, there is another which has had some influence in inducing me to publish these memories. In the generation that has grown up since the '60's, there is a disposition to undervalue the merits of the "Old South" and to discount the patriotism and the courage, the sacrifice and the suffering of those, who wore the grey. If these pages shall recall to my old comrades with any degree of pleasure, the lights and shadows of our soldier life, or shall bring to the younger generation, to whom the Old South is not even a memory, a truer conception of "the tender grace of a day that is dead" I shall be more than repaid for the labor involved in their preparation.
INDEX.
| INTRODUCTORY. | |
| Page | |
| Early History of the Oglethorpes | [7] |
| Off to the War | [9] |
| The Laurel Hill Retreat | [15] |
| CHAPTER I. | |
| Donning the Grey | [17] |
| My First March | [21] |
| My First Skirmish | [23] |
| My First Picket Duty | [29] |
| My First Battle | [30] |
| A Night Stampede | [33] |
| Three Little Confederates | [36] |
| CHAPTER II. | |
| A Change of Base | [38] |
| A Tramp With Stonewall Jackson | [43] |
| Aunt Hannah | [48] |
| A Ride With Belle Boyd, the Confederate Spy | [50] |
| Home Again | [55] |
| Roster of Oglethorpe Infantry | [56] |
| CHAPTER III. Service with 12th Ga. Battalion. | |
| A "Little Long" | [62] |
| 12th Ga. Flag | [63] |
| Col. Hogeland's War Diary | [65] |
| The Parson and the Gravy | [71] |
| Rations | [75] |
| CHAPTER IV. Coast Service. | |
| A Study in Insect Life | [80] |
| Fire and Fall Back | [86] |
| Skirmishing for Pie | [87] |
| Steed and the Sugar | [88] |
| Our Camp Poet | [91] |
| CHAPTER V. | |
| Dalton and Atlanta Campaign | [97] |
| Stripes on the Wrong Side | [107] |
| A Twilight Prayer Meeting | [109] |
| Tom Howard's Squirrel Bead | [112] |
| "Jim, Touch Off No. 1" | [114] |
| A Summer Day on the Firing Line | [117] |
| Saved from Death by a Bible | [123] |
| Battle of Kennesaw | [130] |
| Under Two Flags | [137] |
| Saved from a Northern Prison by a Novel | [142] |
| A Slave's Loyalty | [148] |
| CHAPTER VI. Nashville Campaign. | |
| A Christmas Day With Forrest | [155] |
| Gen. Bate as a Poet and Wit | [166] |
| Pat Cleburne as an Orator | [168] |
| "Who Ate the Dog?" | [171] |
| Courage Sublime | [178] |
| CHAPTER VII. The Closing Campaign. | |
| An Arctic Ride | [182] |
| A Sad Home Coming | [187] |
| Our Last Battle | [190] |
| Conclusion | [200] |
| Roster Co. A, 63rd Ga. | [204] |
| ADDENDA. | |
| Oglethorpe Infantry Co. B | [214] |
| Roster Co. A, 9th Ga., Co. C, 2d Ga. S. S. | [219] |
| SUPPLEMENT. | |
| One of My Heroes | [225] |
| Ben Hill and the Dog | [229] |
| The Rebel Chaplain and the Dying Boy in Blue | [236] |