I turned Jim over to his mother at his home. He stood the trip very well and soon recovered from his wound. We had left amid the cheers and tears of an excellent throng, feeling that we would soon be victorious and return, but none felt joyous now, only to see the few who were left returning.
R. H. PECK, 1913.
When I got to the Court House several had heard I was coming and met me there. I told the boys I’d left home the 17th of May ’61 to fight Yankees and at the first battle of Manassas, we fought full fledged American Yankees and they were gentlemen, but after that we fought every nationality, I think, unless it was Esquimos. They had been hired by the Yankees, of course, and some of them were tough customers I tell you.
I reached home that eve with my dappled gray that I captured in Stafford Co., near Kelley’s Ford in ’63 and which Gen. Stewart had given me. I also had the gun with me, that I had to take from the provost guard to get corn for our starving horses, on the horrible retreat, just a few days before the surrender. I still have it among my war relics.
Mother met me at the gate and I told her I hadn’t a single regret. I felt I had answered my country’s call and discharged my duty, but all the time I was fighting for what my state thought best and against my own convictions.
My father was offered $8,000 for his slaves just before the war and I begged him to take it and not own slaves. I never thought slavery was right, although my father treated his slaves as kindly as any one possibly could and they were good and obedient.
The many happy days that our old black mammy took us children out to gather hickorynuts, pick beans or do any kind of light work or play, are still fresh in my memory to day. And the many coon, and opossum and rabbit hunts, that her boy Jack who was just a few years older than I, and myself have had together. He was always so thoughtful of our wellfare and protected me and my brothers, more like an older brother than a slave.
I told mother how I’d been in 54 engagements, some hard fought and others not, but in nearly every one, some of my relatives, friends or acquaintances, were killed or wounded. We had left them buried or on the field in Md., Penn., all through the Valley of Va., at Manassas Junction, through the Wilderness of Spottsylvania, over the battle fields holding Sheridan back from Richmond, holding Grant back from Spottsylvania, on around to Petersburg and then to Appomattox C. H. None of father’s slaves left him for a year or more but he paid them some wages, of course, and they seemed as sad and disconsolate as we were when they did leave. My father was getting old, and as he had been security for a number of men who had lost their wealth in slaves, just as he had, he was placed in straightened circumstances. So we had to soon forget for a time, the sorrows we had passed through and turn our minds to caring for those around us. None of our property had been stolen or burned by raiders, so we were better off than the thousands of households and farms we had passed by, during the war and from whom we were obliged to steal some times or starve. While I often thought of four of the best years of my youth being wasted, as it was, in a lost cause, I didn’t regret it as it was obeying my country’s call, whether it was right or wrong. I had much to be thankful for and especially as I had gone through the whole war and hadn’t gotten a scar. God has blessed me with health and strength and while I’ve never had any of the luxuries of life, I’ve been, and am still, at my advanced age, able to enjoy its comforts.
THE END.