Joseph E. Johnston, General Official;
Kimlock Falconer, A. A. G.
The Confederate infantry received their parole at Greensboro, N. C., May 1, 1865. In order to expedite the printing and issuing of the paroles, the Confederate cavalry, under General Wheeler, was sent to Charlotte, N. C., where they received their paroles, dated May 3, 1865. General Wheeler issued the following farewell address to his cavalry corps:
Headquarters Cavalry Corps, April 28, 1865.
Gallant Comrades: You have fought your fight; your task is done. During a four years’ fight for liberty you have exhibited courage, fortitude, and devotion; you are the victors of more than two hundred strongly contested fields; you have participated in more than a thousand conflicts of arms; you are heroes, victors, and patriots; the bones of your comrades mark the battle fields upon the soil of Kentucky, Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and Virginia; you have done all that human exertion could accomplish. In bidding you adieu I desire to tender to you my thanks for your gallantry in battle and your devotion at all times to the holy cause you have done so much to maintain. I desire also to express my gratification for the kind feeling you have seen fit to extend toward myself, and to evoke upon you the blessings of your Heavenly Father, to whom we must always look for support in the hour of distress.
Joe Wheeler, Major General.
After this the troops scattered to their homes. The First Tennessee Cavalry Regiment, the Ninth Battalion of Tennessee, and a greater part of the Fourth Tennessee left in a body, as they resided in Middle Tennessee. We were provided with some rations; but after traveling some distance, we found that it would be necessary to forage upon the country. For the purpose of lightening the burden upon an almost impoverished people, we separated, the First Regiment and the Ninth Battalion taking the road to the right, crossing the East Tennessee Railroad at Strawberry Plains, and the Fourth Tennessee crossing at Sweetwater. At these places on the railroad the commands were halted, and an order was presented from General Stoneman (with headquarters at Knoxville) to dismount the men, take their horses, and ship the men by rail to their homes. Of course a protest was made against this proceeding, as it was expressly provided for by the terms of the articles of the surrender that the horses were the private property of the men and they were allowed to keep them. Forty years after this unwarranted proceeding the Congress of the United States passed an act to pay these soldiers for their horses and equipment—to wit: One hundred and twenty-five dollars for the horse and ten dollars for the saddle and bridle. This act was limited to soldiers that were paroled at the surrender of the Confederate army, and, in case of death, to their widows. Where there was no widow, the children were to receive the benefit. The act provided also that the taking must have been done by the United States soldiers. Many have availed themselves of this long-deferred justice, and in many cases it has benefited them and their families immensely.
About the 20th of May, 1865, the Middle Tennessee soldiers reached Nashville to proceed to their homes. It was a sad home-coming with many of them: to desolated homes, a war-swept country, families suffering for the necessities of life, and, worst of all, with a disreputable militia lording it over a helpless people, with the Freedman’s Bureau playing an important part in the dirty work—in fact, it was their coöperator in chief. Many revolting acts could be told of its reign in Tennessee and throughout the South after the war.
CHAPTER XII.
Casualty Lists.
Before closing this short narrative I have concluded to make a final effort to obtain a list of the casualties of the Regiment during the war. To get this now, forty-seven years after, I have been limited to very narrow resources; for but few men of the companies are living to-day, and they are old and feeble—many of them in mind as well as body. I have, however, seen a few personally and addressed letters to others asking information under the following heads: First, the names of such of their company as were killed in battle; second, the names of those that were wounded in battle; and, third, the names of those who had died of disease during the war. I thought I could and ought to present this much, if it could be obtained, that it might be preserved in form. I have succeeded partially in some instances. In one instance I cannot find or hear of a single soldier of the company who is living; in others very meager information is to be had. The companies composing the Regiment were from different and sometimes distant sections of the State. Those who have responded to the request have done fairly well in reporting the names of their company killed in battle, but the number of wounded and such as died of disease during the war it will be possible to give only in part. It is well known that every wound received in battle counts in making up a true casualty report. It is likely and probable that many of the wounded reported back in a short time, or maybe, as it was in many instances, that the men remained in camp till they had recuperated sufficiently for duty. In this way no general impression of their being wounded is made so long afterwards. But it is a universal and long-established rule in all armies that where one man is killed you can count with certainty that five have been wounded. Many of the men of the Regiment have been wounded more than once, some as many as four or five times, and in different engagements. In the conclusion I give I count only one wound.