On approaching Lebanon, a deathlike stillness prevailed. I could see neither individuals nor lights about the streets or houses. The numerous white houses glistened in the moonlight like a whitened cemetery. I remembered where Mrs. Dolly Anderson McGregor lived. She was the wife of Capt. Andrew McGregor and a sister of Lieutenant Colonel Anderson, of the Fourth Tennessee Cavalry. She readily informed me that a Georgia command of cavalry had passed down the street toward Nashville about sundown. I concluded that they would stop at the creek about a mile away to water or feed their horses or probably to camp for the night. I hurried in that direction to overtake them. As I approached Seawell Hill, near the residence of Judge Abe Caruthers (now deceased), I came upon a picket. I went forward and told them who I was, and found out that the Georgia battalion had gone into camp for the night. I told them I was so tired that I would lie down at the post and sleep till daylight, when I would go forward and meet the major of their battalion, whom I knew. I took advantage of the opportunity offered to review the very successful campaign I had just finished; and, to be brief, I wisely concluded that the army was the safest refuge in time of civil war, and that if the war were to last a thousand years I would not undertake a campaign “behind the lines” again. There were too many unanticipated difficulties and hairbreadth escapes along the way. The day that I spent at home was one of untold agonies to my family, such as is hardly possible for human nature to endure. I could not and would not impose it upon them again.
CHAPTER VII.
In Tennessee, Virginia, and Harassing Sherman.
On reaching Lebanon, I came up with a squadron or more of the Fourth Georgia. They had been sent out on detached duty, and were trying to overtake the command. General Dibrell came in from White County with four or five hundred men, mostly recruits and returning absentees. We learned definitely that General Wheeler had passed over the Nashville, Chattanooga, and St. Louis Railway near Nashville, and that in passing Franklin he had a fight with the enemy and had gone farther south. General Kelly, a well and favorably known officer of his command, and others had been killed. Dibrell assumed command and marched down the Murfreesboro Pike, expecting to cross the railroad near Smyrna, in order that he might hear something of General Wheeler; but being informed here that Gen. “Cerro Gordo” Williams was at Sparta with a command of about fifteen hundred men and he being the ranking officer, General Dibrell concluded that he would go to Sparta and unite with him. There were not more than three hundred guns in Dibrell’s little command at that time.
Upon reaching Blackshop, about eight miles from Murfreesboro, we marched over to the Woodbury Pike, near Readyville, and went into camp for the night on the first high ground from the bridge. We had been informed by a citizen that a few hours before the Seventh Pennsylvania Cavalry Regiment had passed down the pike toward Murfreesboro. Before lying down on the grass for the night a picket was placed at the bridge. At daylight the next morning this Federal regiment came charging into our camp. It is said that they were eleven hundred strong; for they had just returned from the North, where they had been recruited to the highest limit. Many of the Confederates had not arisen from their pallets. A general mix-up fight was had, our men using their navy pistols and outfighting the Yankees with sabers. General Dibrell rallied the men at the other end of the line and gave the enemy a volley which rather staggered them. After some hard fighting, General Dibrell withdrew his men. No pursuit was made, except that their advance guard attacked our rear guard at the bridge this side of Woodbury and were repulsed. Quite a number of men were killed and wounded on both sides. The Federals captured about one hundred of our disarmed men. With their numerical strength and advantage, they should have captured the entire command of General Dibrell.
We then pursued our way to Sparta. We met General Williams at Sparta with his force of about fifteen hundred men. We went from there over to a place called Sinking Cave, where we remained two days, feeding our horses and having them shod. General Williams concluded to return to the army at Atlanta. We passed on through Crossville and up through Upper East Tennessee. Gen. John H. Morgan had just been killed at Greeneville, Tenn., where he was stationed. The circumstances attending this unnecessary murder greatly exasperated the men. After killing him, it is said that a soldier lifted his dead body up on his horse and paraded the streets of Greeneville with it, amid the cheers of the Federal soldiers. Federal bushwhackers were thick along our line of march and occasionally killed some of our men. This, with the killing of General Morgan, caused our men to retaliate, and they were guilty of some outrageous conduct. General Williams tried to stop it, and had three privates and a lieutenant arrested and regularly tried by court-martial. The facts alleged against them were proved to be true, but the court-martial left it to the commanding general, Williams, to fix the penalty, when he ordered the severest punishment to be enforced—death by hanging. As soon as it was known, four members of the court (one refusing to sign) and the Judge Advocate petitioned General Williams to change his order, claiming that the offense was not at all commensurate with the penalty he imposed. This he refused to do, saying that it was necessary to make an example in order to stop it. His orders were executed the next morning.
When in the neighborhood of Rogersville, Tenn., General Williams received an order from General Breckenridge, at Saltville, Va., to hasten there with his command, as General Burbridge was marching on the place with a view of destroying it. This was the chief salt supply for the Southern States. We passed through Bristol and Abingdon, Va., and reached Saltville in the nick of time, for General Giltner, with his brigade, was skirmishing with the Federals when we came upon the field.
General Breckenridge’s force at Saltville consisted of Giltner’s small brigade of cavalry, some cadets from the Military Institute in Virginia, workmen about the salt works, and the cavalry command of Gen. “Cerro Gordo” Williams, numbering altogether about three thousand men. Burbridge had a well-equipped command that considerably outnumbered the Confederates. The Fourth and Eighth Tennessee were assigned to a position on a somewhat elevated knoll, in rather an advanced position in the line, and received the first onset of the enemy. They were slow in approaching the line, and our men went forward to meet them. The cry was raised that we were fighting negroes. They were the first we had ever met. Many of them were killed and wounded. There was fighting all along the line, continuing for three hours or more, when Burbridge was driven off and commenced to retreat. About six hundred on both sides were killed and wounded. This field presented a scene that was never witnessed before. There were more dead men than wounded. We lost some of our best soldiers.
That night we pursued the enemy, passing over the mountain to a gap with the view of cutting them off. They had to travel over a distance of forty miles on a well-built macadamized road. The mountain path to the gap was only twelve miles in length, and the men had to dismount and lead their horses. The night was very dark, and it was hard to discern the path. Occasionally a horse would make a misstep and tumble down the steep mountain side, when you could hear the noise of falling stones for minutes afterwards as they rolled down and down the precipitate mountain side. There was nothing for the soldiers to do but sit down till daylight near the track the column made. We were told afterwards by some of these soldiers that they found their horses miles below where they fell. I have occasionally met an old soldier who was at Saltville, and about the first thing he would speak of would be: “Did you ever experience anything like that dark night ride at Saltville, Va.? And the wonder is that a number of men were not dashed to pieces down the steep mountain side.” We reached the gap at daylight. Burbridge’s rear guard was passing through, and we killed and wounded a few of them. We asked an old citizen if any one had ever traveled over the pathway before. He replied: “Occasionally I have seen citizens going over it and coming back with a bag of salt on a lead horse, but nobody that I have ever heard of would dare to do so at nighttime. It is a wonder that half of you were not killed.”
When General Williams left Sparta for the Army of Tennessee, at Atlanta, all of the independents and bushwhackers in that part of the State went out with him. It got so hot thereabout, and the Federals were swarming so in Tennessee (like bees), that they concluded the better part of valor was to get away. Champ Ferguson, of the one side, and Dave Beatty, of the other, both, I believe, from Fentress County, were the respective leaders. A warfare had been raging in this part of the State and Southern Kentucky since the beginning of the war, and some outrageous murders had been perpetrated upon citizens as well as soldiers. The name of each was a terror to one side or the other. Champ Ferguson and his followers participated actively at Saltville. After the battle was over a Lieutenant Smith, of the Federal army, was left with others wounded. He was taken to Emory and Henry College, which was made a hospital for both armies. When Ferguson heard the fact, he went over there and killed Lieutenant Smith. It was said that Smith had during the war killed a Colonel Hamilton, who was a comrade, neighbor, and personal friend of Ferguson; that Smith had captured Hamilton after a fight between members of the two clans, and had been ordered with a squad of soldiers to take him to headquarters over in Kentucky; but that, after starting with his prisoner and going a short distance, he ordered his men to take Hamilton to the side of the public road, where he was stood up by a tree and shot to death.
A short time after the Confederates had returned from the surrender, in May, 1865, Ferguson, who had surrendered to the Federals, was undergoing trial by court-martial at Nashville. He had been arrested at Saltville, Va., by order of General Williams for the alleged killing of Smith and sent to Richmond, as we understood it, and we saw him no more afterwards. The war terminated a short time after this. I presume in the confusion of things he was permitted to return to his home in Tennessee. I was told that frequent attempts had been made to capture him; but finally, after being advised and on being assured by Federal authority that if he would surrender he would be given the same terms that had been extended to other Confederates, he gave up. After this he was placed on trial by a military court-martial on various charges of murder. Among others was the charge of the murder of Lieutenant Smith at Emory and Henry College, in Virginia. He was convicted and executed by hanging at Nashville. I do not approve of the murder of Lieutenant Smith, nor do I approve of the promises made Ferguson to induce him to surrender; for if half is true that I have heard about Ferguson, he certainly had his grievances.