Of the white-winged angel of glory,
With the heart of the South at the feet of God,
And his wounds to tell the story.”
Major Bledsoe, with his company, was in General Bragg’s Kentucky campaign in 1862, returning with General Bragg to Tennessee. In October, 1862, when the Regiment was organized at Nolensville, Tenn., he was appointed major, and his company became Company I (as before stated) of the Fourth Tennessee Cavalry Regiment. He served continually with the Regiment until the surrender, and was in all of its battles and campaigns. His brother, Robert Bledsoe, afterwards killed in Wheeler’s raid into Middle Tennessee, succeeded him as captain of the company. Major Bledsoe was a true and brave soldier and a most affable and intelligent gentleman. After the surrender he and many of his old company moved to other parts of the country. In fact, a local warfare existed in their section between the clans of Champ Ferguson on the Confederate side and those of “Tinker Dave” Beatty on the part of the Union men, and many revolting killings occurred. This lasted several years after peace was declared. Maj. Scott Bledsoe died at Cleburne, Tex., some years ago, one of its most prominent and wealthy citizens.
CHAPTER XIV.
An Address and a Speech.
The Woodbury (Tenn.) Press of September 19, 1878, published the following upon the occasion of the first reunion of the Regiment after the war:
Address of Adjutant George B. Guild.
I rejoice in my heart to meet so many of you. More than thirteen years have passed away since, in the Old North State, by order of superior officers, you laid aside the equipments of war and furled forever the flag you have loved and followed—often in victory, sometimes in disaster, but always in honor and with a soldier’s devotion to duty. It is meet and proper, fellow soldiers, that our reunion should be inaugurated at Woodbury. For here, under these towering hills and along the meanderings of the beautiful little river that laves your green and fertile valleys, were enacted many of the stirring scenes through which the Regiment passed. Here too it was our fortune to have encamped on outpost duty for some time. Who is it that does not remember with the fondest recollection the generous liberality of this hospitable people? Your male population were mostly in the army. The decrepit old men and women were here—God bless them!—and nobly did they extend a helping hand in every possible manner. This is the first opportunity we have had to return to you the thanks of our grateful hearts; and when I do so, I know that I utter the sentiment of every member of the Regiment. Amid all of the vicissitudes through which we afterwards passed, and the dreary years that have gone by since then we have remembered with gratitude, and with a longing for your prosperity and happiness, the good and noble women of this vicinity. In the name of the Regiment, I again extend our heartfelt thanks. It is meet and proper from another view that our inaugural meeting should be at Woodbury; for in this vicinity two of the Regiment’s companies were recruited—Company E, Capt. H. A. Wyly, and Company G, Capt. J. W. Nichol. And while it would be improper to make distinctions when all have acted so well their part, two better companies never answered the bugle call or followed honor’s beckoning. A hundred battle fields have been stained with your blood, and nowhere at any time has the slightest dishonor tarnished your fame as soldiers.
I see around me some of the surviving veterans of these two noble companies, battle-scarred, limbless, with the honors of war thick upon their persons; and it is well and proper that we should meet here amid friends and relatives of such men, to clasp again the friendly hand and open to each other the warm hearts of comrades while we talk of battles lost and won and renew that attachment for each other that germinated and ripened amid scenes that unmistakably told what stuff men are made of. Let this be an inauguration of a meeting together which shall extend through long years to come, having for its object the perpetuation of the truth of history, to preserve unsullied the reputation of the living, and to embalm forever the memory of those gallant spirits who offered their lives a free sacrifice to a cause which was as holy as that which nerved the arms of our Revolutionary sires. Let our children learn of it, so that they may teach their children’s children that to have fought and lost does not necessarily stigmatize their ancestors as traitors. Might is not always right, and “truth crushed to earth will rise again.”
But, fellow soldiers, it is no part of our coming together to discuss the theory of the War between the States—its causes or whether we were right or wrong. “There’s a Divinity that shapes our ends, rough-hew them how we will.” It is a stern fact that war did come and the most stupendous conflict of arms ensued of which modern history gives any account. Suffice it to say at this time that a strong sectional feeling had been engendered between the sections of the country; that it had originated many years before the war; and that it had grown in intensity year after year until 1861, when the war cloud became so heavily charged with angry passion that it burst in all its fury and enveloped the country in a conflict which, besides a million lives, cost an inestimable amount of property and treasure. Some of our sister States had been thoroughly instructed in the doctrine of State sovereignty. They had wrongs, grievous wrongs, to complain of at the hands of the North, which the North refused to remedy. They asked peaceably to retire from the Union of States. The government proposed to coerce them into submission and made her levies for armies upon sister Southern States for the purpose of whipping them into the Union. Not till this was done by the general government did Tennessee appear upon the scene. A few months before at the ballot box she had, by a majority of over sixty thousand, decided to cling to the Union of our fathers; but when she saw that it was to be a war of subjugation, she scorned to be neutral and elected to go with her people and kindred and to share their fate, be it for weal or for woe. Tennessee answered her sister States as Ruth did Naomi: “Whither thou goest, I will go; ... thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God: where thou diest, will I die, and there will I be buried.”