At the camp a lot of boxes of provisions and clothing arrived in charge of Mrs. Jane Durrett from Tuscaloosa for different Tuscaloosa boys. This good patriotic lady would leave her home and husband on a Tuscaloosa County farm and take charge of batches of supplies, provisions, clothing, etc., for officers or men. She saw to it, that every box was delivered to the soldier to whom it was sent. No man could have done this work as she did it. Neither the pompous little Lieutenant in charge of a provost guard, nor train guard, nor commanders of posts, nor the General in command of an army had any terrors for her. They were all means to be lent to the service that she was on. In the car, where her boxes went, she went, when she got with them, as far as railroad could carry her goods, her quick Irish wit and flattering tongue would soon get an order from some competent artillery for wagons and drivers and an ambulance for herself, to take her goods to their destination, and she delivered them in person to whomsoever they had been sent, officers or privates. She served one equally as heartily as the other. Of course she had to rough it, and see much hardship and exposure, but she gloried in so serving her country. She had several sons in the army doing their duty also, as became men from such stock. Jim Bobbett, my body servant, Rube, Alex Dearing's man and some of the other company darkies had also been south on the railroad looking out for supplies. Our messenger got a big fat gobbler, we cooked him in a big three legged cast iron wash pot. Mr. Menander Rosser reminds me that Dr. James T. Searcy, (now Superintendent of the Alabama Bryce Hospital for the Insane) was boss of that job, he put in good time for some days previous to the feast in stuffing corn meal dough down that turkey's throat, to make sure of his being good and fat at the proper time. Can you see the picture, Searcy on a log, gobbler between his knees, left forefinger and thumb prying open the gobbler's mouth, while the balance of his left hand kept the neck straight up; right hand rolling up enormous bread pills and forcing them into the gobbler's mouth, and manipulating them down to the craw. Henry Donoho holding the bread pan assisting in rolling the pills. Several others of the mess, much interested in the operation, scattered around. We first parboiled him till nearly tender, with an oven lid covering the pot. Then we filled him with biscuit and hard-tack crumbs and pieces of fat bacon, and cut onions and sage and the chopped gizzard and liver, all mixed; boiling down the water meanwhile to a rich gravy. Then we put the stuffed turkey in again, put on the cast oven lid heaping red hot oak and hickory coals on top and under the pot. If the reader knows something about cooking, it is plain that this gobbler was cooked to a delightful brown, brown all over, with the juice oozing out of his skin. And that turkey was not all of that dinner. Out of the boxes from home came material for mashed potatoes, boiled rice, cowpeas, bread and biscuit and butter, and dried peaches for a big "biled cat" for dessert with butter and brown sugar for sauce. "Biled Cat"! Eat "Biled Cat!" Yes, indeed! Soldiers thought "biled cat" good enough for any body. Its composition was biscuit dough, rolled out into a sheet one-fourth of an inch thick, spread with stewed dried apples or peaches, seasoned with sugar and spice and everything nice, to another half inch in thickness; rolled up into a long roll and then rolled up in a clean towel or flour sack, tied up and dropped into a pot of boiling water and boiled until done. When done the cloth unrolled and the contents cut into sections one-half an inch thick and deluged with "butter and sugar" sauce, it delightfully filled all the spaces and perhaps somewhat distended a Confederate soldier's stomach, who had already enjoyed a real good turkey and fixings dinner. What a change that was from the regular daily diet of corn pone and rancid bacon, boiled with cowpeas containing about three black weevils to the pea. As some declared most of the peas were already seasoned enough without any bacon. At such times soldiers would live lavishly. They knew, "we are here today, where we shall be tomorrow, no one can tell." We enjoyed our good things while we could. When they were gone, we would get back to cornbread and bacon or beef hash or boiled beef as best we could, and very often the transition "was awful sudden." In winter quarters, we might be saving, and make good things last as long as possible but in intervals of a campaign, we would live whilst we could and "take no thought for the morrow."
While on the subject of "grub," who of us does not think of our efficient "boss" cook, Tom Potts? Can not each of us see him now in this camp behind Missionary Ridge. There he sits day and night (except perhaps 9:00 or 10:00 p.m. to 3:00 a.m. when he sleeps) in his split bottom chair, in front of the center pole of his tent. Behind him his wall tent, each side piled up with boxes and barrels and sacks of meal, flour, salt, sugar, bacon, the only man in camp who always has a good tent because it is absolutely a necessity. A tall, slouch-shouldered man, wide brim felt hat, black hair almost to his shoulders, complexion very dark, long black moustache and whiskers and eternally, when awake, a big black meerschaum in his mouth, puffing away. Very quiet, slow soft spon, he occasionally gives some directions about the cooking to the negroes and to the white soldiers detailed to cook. He is nothing of a hustler, but he has directed negroes from his boyhood up and is as efficient a "boss cook" as the army contained without any bluster. Six or eight feet in front of him, a big hickory oak fire, say ten feet long, with glowing coals under the logs, skillets, ovens and pots all occupied in baking bread or boiling beef under the hands of the negro men, who delighted in the work and joke and grin and laugh or jump out and dance part of a jig, whilst another claps his hands and pats knees for the music. Occasionally Potts may quietly say to his negro man, "Jim" I wish you would hand me a cup of water." He keeps his seat, drinks, hands back the cup and goes on smoking. No man in the army has a better colored meerschaum. On the march or while the army was in the trenches, rations are issued, cooked, the bread being baked and the beef boiled, bacon or salt pork is issued raw, the soldiers eating it raw, or boiled on coals, if convenient and the meat not too scant. In permanent camp, the soldiers drew the rations raw or cooked as they preferred almost always each mess preferred to do its own cooking. With us confederates, bread was mostly corn pone, sometimes biscuits, sometimes hard-tack. Cold cornbread or hard-tack crumbled into a tin can and boiled with perhaps a few scraps of meat was "cush" and "cush" tasted good, hot off the coals, after a hard day's march or fighting.
The writers opinion is that the word comes from Louisana where now the Creole French takes his turn of corn to mill and has it ground into what the American calls "grits," but the Frenchman of Lousiana, calls it "cous cous."
At one time the Confederate government experimented with a mixture of cowpea flour and wheat flour, for the making of a nourishing hard tack. Doubtless it was nourishing enough, when there was plenty of time to boil them soft enough to eat, but most men's teeth were not able to grind them. It took a hatchet of ax to break them up and the broken pieces resembled shiny pieces of flint rock. They were not so great a success for the soldier on the march as the inventor expected. Every day some of the officers and men would get permission to go to the top of the Ridge, visiting friends, in different commands, on the lines facing Chattanooga, so we kept in touch with what could be seen and heard of the situation. At the distance, the Yanks could be seen moving about in Chattanooga like ants in a hill and just about as much could be told as to what they were doing, as could be told by a man watching the doings of ants at a distance that will barely allow them to be distinguished.
Soon after our big dinner, Major Robertson ordered Capt. Lumsden and one of the other batteries to be ready to march at dusk, taking only the gun detachment and guns with their carriages, leaving the caissons in camp with their horses and drivers.
These two companies were led during the night by a guide to the Tennessee river at a point a few miles above Chattanooga, with all hands warned not to speak above a whisper and to prevent all noise of movement possible and placed in position, along an open field, on top of bank of river, between midnight and day, with the information that a Federal command was just across the river in camp and only picketing confederate soldiers along our bank. So we lay, waiting for daylight, some sleeping, some chatting in whispers, in as comfortable position as the ground afforded.
Just before daylight orders were passed around to get "into battery", with cannoneers at posts and to load with shells, with fuses cut to 200 yards (point blank range) and when ordered to fire, to continue to load and fire till ordered to cease firing and move away.
Major Robertson sat his horse at a point where he had previously been in daylight, from which he knew he could get the first glimpse of the Yankee camp opposite, when it should be light enough. The other officers all on their horses in their proper positions in each battery, all drivers mounted and cannoneers at post, with guns loaded and primers stuck in the gun vents, lanjords in the hands of No. 4 cannoneer. From across the river the Yankee bugle rang out with the "reveille", call and instantly Major Robertson's voice "Battalion! Ready! Fire!" Eight guns thundered almost as one and continued to fire each about four shots to the minute for possibly six or eight minutes, when a Federal battery replied. Then came Robertson's command, "Limber to the rear! To the right, march! Gallop!" And away we went down the river under the cover of the sheltering woods. A piece of shell took off the arm of one of Lumsden's men, near the shoulder, as we moved away. His name was Ray, a private from somewhere in Georgia. He was attended and brought to camp in the ambulance and sent back to hospital, whether he recovered or not, we are not sure.
It developed that this little expedition was arranged the day before by Bragg's orders, as a sort of reconnaissance, to find out whether or not the Yankees had any artillery at this point, and the opposite side of the river. His order to Robertson was to leave at once if answered by artillery and not to engage in an artillery duel. All along the route of return to camp, the different commands in the trenches wanted to know what all that racket meant up the river. "We never heard guns fire so fast in our lives before." "We thought the ball must be about to open again, etc." By mid-day we were back in our camp again.
The battery remained in this camp till Tuesday, Nov. 24th, the morning of the battle of Missionary Ridge, when camp was broken and wagons sent to rear with all camp equipage. The fighting part was ordered to top of ridge near Gen. Bragg's headquarters. There we remained with the battle field stretched out before us, simply ready to move, and viewing the great disaster to the confederate army to our left, we could take no part, could get to no point where needed. Below us, in our immediate front and to our right, our men held their own manfully. Orderlies and aids galloped to headquarters, orderlies and aid galloping away again. It filtered down to us that on our extreme left, the Yankees had gained the ridge and so taking our army on its left flank. In the afternoon came orders to us, to move to the rear. We soon found ourselves traveling rearward with lots of wounded infantry and so continued till we crossed Chickamauga creek and took a position to protect the crossing if necessary. Here we remained until next morning Nov. 25th till 9:00 a.m., the boys finding in a deserted smoke house a barrel about half full of beef tallow. It was broken up and distributed around and came in afterwards to melt up for biscuit shortening. It tasted very well, when biscuits were eaten hot, but to be eaten cold it is not to be recommended.