Edward A. Moore
(February 1907)
CHAPTER XXIII
AT "THE BOWER"—RETURN TO ORANGE COUNTY, VIRGINIA—BLUE RUN CHURCH—BRISTOW STATION—RAPPAHANNOCK BRIDGE—SUPPLEMENTING CAMP RATIONS
To return to my retreat from Gettysburg. The clothes that I wore were all that I now possessed. My blanket, extra wearing apparel, lard, apple-butter, sole-leather, etc., with the wounded, were in the hands of the Federals. Being completely cut off from our army, I set out for Winchester. Near Martinsburg I passed the night sleeping on the ground—my first sleep in sixty hours—and reached Winchester the following day. In a day or two, thinking our army had probably reached the Potomac, I turned back to join it. On my way thither I called at "The Bower," the home of my messmate, Steve Dandridge. This was a favorite resort of Gen. J. E. B. Stuart, where, accompanied by the celebrated banjoist, Joe Sweeny, merry nights were passed with song and dance. I was overwhelmed with kindness by Mr. and Mrs. Dandridge, their daughters and nieces. They would not hear of my leaving; at any rate, until they had time to make me some undergarments. In the afternoon I accompanied the young ladies to the fields blackberrying, and had some jolly laughs. They felt that a Confederate soldier should be treated like a king, that he must be worn out with marching and fighting. They insisted on my sitting in the shade while they gathered and brought me the choicest berries, and actually wanted to let the fences down, to save me the effort of climbing. At that time I weighed one hundred and ninety pounds, was in vigorous health and strength, tough as hickory, and could go over or through a Virginia rail fence as deftly as a mule. It was some days before our army could recross the Potomac, on account of high water. As I rode in, on my return to the battery, I was given a regular cheer, all thinking that I was probably, by that time, in Fort Delaware.
Our wounded had been captured in Pennsylvania, except Tom Williamson, who was left at the toll-house and picked up as our battery came by. As he had become my bedfellow since Stuart's death, I was sent with him to Winchester, where I cared for him at the home of Mrs. Anne Magill. During my stay Randolph Tucker, a brother of Mrs. Magill, and Bishop Wilmer, of Alabama, were guests in the house, and Mr. Tucker kept the household alive with his songs and jokes. After a week or more in camp, near Bunker Hill, our despondent army passed through Winchester, thence by Front Royal across the Blue Ridge, and encamped for the remainder of the summer in Orange County, with men and horses greatly depleted in number and spirits.
Our battery camped at Blue Run Church and near a field of corn. Roasting ears afforded the chief portion of our living. It was surprising to see how much, in addition to the army rations, a man could consume day after day, or rather night after night, with no especial alteration in his physique.
Soup was a favorite dish, requiring, as it did, but one vessel for all the courses, and the more ingredients it contained, the more it was relished. Merrick claimed to be an adept in the culinary art, and proposed to several of us that if we would "club in" with him he would concoct a pot that would be food for the gods. He was to remain in camp, have the water boiling, and the meat sufficiently cooked by the time the others returned from their various rounds in search of provender. In due time, one after another, the foragers showed up, having been very successful in their acquisitions, which, according to Merrick's directions, were consigned to the pot. As some fresh contribution, which he regarded as especially savory, was added, Merrick's countenance would brighten up. At one time he sat quietly musing, then gave expression to his joy in an Irish ditty. His handsome suit of clothes, donned at Hagerstown, was now in tatters, which made his appearance the more ludicrous as he "cut the pigeon-wing" around the seething cauldron. He had particularly enjoined upon us, when starting out, to procure, at all hazards, some okra, which we failed to get, and, in naming aloud the various items, as each appeared on the surface of the water, he wound up his soliloquy with, "And now, Lord, for a little okra!"
In September the army moved again toward Manassas, about seventy miles distant. When we arrived at Bristow, the next station south of Manassas, an engagement had just taken place, in which Gen. A. P. Hill had been disastrously outwitted by his adversary, General Warren, and the ground was still strewn with our dead. The Federals were drawn up in two lines of battle, the one in front being concealed in the railroad-cut, while the rear line, with skirmishers in front, stood in full view. The Confederates, unaware of the line in the cut, advanced to the attack without skirmishers and were terribly cut up by the front line, and driven back, with a loss of several pieces of artillery and scores of men. The delay caused by this unfortunate affair gave the Federal army ample time to withdraw at leisure. General Lee arrived on the scene just at the close of this affair and was asked, by General Hill, if he should pursue the then retreating Federals. He replied, "No, General Hill; all that can now be done is to bury your unfortunate dead."
After this we returned to the west side of the Rappahannock and encamped at Pisgah Church, overlooking the plains about Brandy Station. As the war was prolonged, Confederate rations proportionately diminished, both in quantity and variety. Consequently, to escape the pangs of hunger, the few opportunities that presented themselves were gladly seized. In the absence of the sportsmen of peace times, game had become quite abundant, especially quail. But our "murmurings," if any there were, did not avail, as did those of the Israelites, "to fill the camp." I soon succeeded in getting an Enfield rifle, a gun not designed for such small game. By beating Minie-balls out flat, then cutting the plates into square blocks or slugs, I prepared my ammunition, and in the first eleven shots killed nine quail on the wing. I was shooting for the pot, and shot to kill.