The Confederate cavalry regiments for three winters slept in the open air, without tents, before a log-heap fire. In case of rain or sleet, they would get some forked limbs, place a pole between the forks, put rails on the ground, resting them on the pole, and spread an oilcloth or blanket from the pole down to the ground. The result was a splendid “lay-out” (or “lay-in”), especially with the log-heap fire in front of the opening. The poet has exclaimed in ecstasy:
“Balmy sleep, tired nature’s sweet restorer!”
One can never experience the sentiment unless this is tried. Some died in getting accustomed to it; but generally the survivors were stout, healthy, and active soldiers. A dry snow was not to be dreaded, for it supplied a covering equal to at least two blankets. When morning bugles were sounded, they would rise, throwing blankets and snow off them, feeling stout and strong enough to throw their horse over a ten-rail fence. Such a morning made the boys happy that they were Confederate soldiers and that they could dream of “home, sweet home.”
Every survivor of the Confederate army will indorse what Gen. Bennett H. Young, Commander in Chief of the United Confederate Veterans, so well and truthfully said in his speech on Decoration Day, 1912, at Cave Hill Cemetery, Louisville, Ky., in part as follows:
Our love of country does not dim or tarnish the love for our Confederation. The Confederate States lived only four years, and they occupy upon the pages of human history more space than any other nation that lived for the same length of time. We are not ashamed for what they did; we rejoice in what we suffered. The glory and grandeur of the character of the Confederate soldier we shall maintain for all time. We have nothing to say derogatory to the courage, valor, and patriotism of our countrymen who sleep beneath the stars and stripes, and whose graves are kept green by a nation’s gratitude and love; but we affirm that no nation of equal numbers, with the limitation of a large population of slaves, enlisted proportionately so vast a number of men under its standards or ever undertook to defend so vast a territory. We contend that no army of equal numbers ever fought so many battles in so brief a period or suffered such tremendous losses. One man in every three who wore the Confederate uniform died on the battle field or from wounds received in conflict or in the hospital. History details no account of such a vast percentage of mortality or such tremendous sacrifices. These losses proclaim the incontestable valor of the Confederate soldiers, and no people who ever engaged in war inflicted upon their enemy such vast damage and injury.
But few remain of the line that went down with the flag on the 26th of April, 1865, at Greensboro, N. C. Another generation has come and gone since then. We seldom see each other now. May we meet again in the great hereafter!
“In many a lonely thicket,
Far from life’s beaten track,
The scout and guard and picket,
The boys who never came back: