As a shell from a mortar came tumbling over and over, just above the heads of this mass of humanity, a shout went up from those farther back, "Look out! Look out! There comes a shell." Lower and lower it came, all feeling their hopelessness of escape, should the shell explode in their midst. Some tried to push backwards; others, forward, while a great many crowded around and under an ambulance, to which was hitched an old broken down horse, standing perfectly still and indifferent, and all oblivious to his surroundings. The men gritted their teeth, shrugged their shoulders, and waited in death-like suspense the falling of the fatal messenger—that peculiar, whirling, hissing sound growing nearer and more distinct every second. But instead of falling among the men, it fell directly upon the head [324] of the old horse, severing it almost from the body, but failed to explode. The jam was so great that some had difficulty in clearing themselves from the falling horse. Who of us are prepared to say whether this was mere chance, or that the bolt was guided and directed by an invisible hand?
Bushrod Johnston had formed on the left of the road; Kershaw marching over the crest of the hill in our front, and putting his brigade in line of battle on a broad plateau and along the foot hills of the mountains on the right. Here the troops were halted, to wait the coming up of the rest of the division and Jenkins' two brigades. The cannonading of the enemy was especially severe during our halt, and General Kershaw had to frequently shift his regiments to avoid the terrific force of the enemy's shells. It was not the intention of the commanding General to bring on a general engagement here until he heard from his cavalry beyond the river and those to the west of the mountain. The cavalry had been sent to cut off retreat and close the mountain passes, and the infantry was to press moderately in front, in order to hold the enemy in position.
Just before sunset, however, a general advance was made. One of Kershaw's regiments was climbing along the mountain side, endeavoring to gain the enemy's left, and as our skirmishers became hotly engaged, the movements of the regiment on the side of the mountain were discovered, and the enemy began to retire. Now orders were given to press them hard. The rattle of Bushrod Johnston's rifles on our left told of a pretty stiff fight he was having. As the long row of bristling bayonets of Kershaw's men debouched upon the plain in front of the enemy's works, nothing could be seen but one mass of blue, making way to the rear in great confusion. Our artillery was now brought up and put in action, our infantry continuing to press forward, sometimes at double-quick.
We passed over the enemy's entrenchments without firing a gun. Night having set in, and General Longstreet hearing from his cavalry that all in the enemy's rear was safe, ordered a halt for the night, thinking the game would keep until morning. During the night, however, by some misunderstanding of orders, the commander of the cavalry withdrew from the mountain passes, and the enemy taking advantage of [325] this outlet so unexpectedly offered, made his escape under cover of darkness. Here we had another truthful verification of the oft' quoted aphorism of Burns, about "the best laid plans of mice and men."
This last attempt of Longstreet to bring the enemy to an engagement outside of Knoxville proving abortive, the commanding General determined to close the campaign for the season, and to put his troops in as comfortable winter quarters as possible. This was found on the right or east bank of the Holston, near Morristown and the little hamlet of Russellville. The brigade crossed the Holston about the 17th of December, in a little flat boat, holding about two companies at a time, the boat being put backwards and forwards by means of a stout rope, the men pulling with their hands. A blinding sleet was falling, covering the rope continually with a sheet of ice, almost freezing the hands of the thinly clad and barefooted soldiers. But there was no murmuring nor complaint—all were as jolly and good-natured as if on a picnic excursion. Hardship had become a pleasure and sufferings, patriotism. There were no sickness, no straggling, nor feelings of self-constraint.
General Longstreet speaks thus of his army after he had established his camps and the subsistence trains began to forage in the rich valleys of the French Broad and Chucky Rivers and along the banks of Mossy Creek:
"With all the plentitude of provisions, and many things, which, at the time, seemed luxuries, we were not quite happy. Tattered blankets, garments, shoes (the later going—some gone) opened ways on all sides for piercing winter blasts. There were some hand looms in the country from which we occasionally picked up a piece of cloth, and here and there we received other comforts—some from kind, some from unwilling hands, which could nevertheless spare them. For shoes, we were obliged to resort to raw-hides, from beef cattle, as temporary protection from the frozen ground. Then we found soldiers who could tan the hides of our beeves, some who could make shoes, some who could make shoe pegs, some who could make shoe lasts, so that it came about that the hides passed rapidly from the beeves to the feet of the soldiers in the form of comfortable shoes."
We took up very comfortable quarters, in the way that comfort goes [326] with a soldier—cut off from the outside world. Only a few officers had the old army fly tents; the soldiers were each supplied, or rather had supplied themselves upon the battlefield of the enemy with small tent flies, about five by six feet, so arranged with buttons and button holes that two being buttoned together and stretched over a pole would make the sides or roof and the third would close the end, making a tent about six feet long, five feet wide, and four feet high, in which three or four men could sleep very comfortably. In the bitter weather great roaring fires were built in front during the night, and to which the soldier, by long habit, or a kind of intuition, would stretch his feet, when the cold would become unbearable under his threadbare blanket.
But notwithstanding all these disadvantages, the men of Kershaw's Brigade were bent on having a good time in East Tennessee. They foraged during the day for apples, chickens, butter, or whatever they could find to eat. Some of sporting proclivities would purchase a lot of chicken roosters and then fight, regiment against regiment, and seemed to enjoy as much seeing a fight between a shanghai and a dunghill, as a match between gaved Spanish games.
Many formed the acquaintance of ladies in the surrounding country, and they, too, Union as well as Southern, being cut off like ourselves—their husbands and brothers being either in the Northern or Southern Army—seemed determined on having a good time also. Dancing parties were frequent, and the ladies of Southern sympathies gave the officers and soldiers royal dinners.