The Battle of Shiloh had been fought while we were on the steamer between Duvall’s Bluff and Memphis, General Albert Sidney Johnston had been killed, and the army under General Beauregard had fallen back to Corinth, and the town was literally alive with officers and soldiers. There were more headquarters, more sentinels, and more red tape here than I had ever dreamed of. I had not seen uniformed officers or men west of the Mississippi River, and had known nothing of red tape in the army. Knowing nothing of the organization of the army beyond our own brigade, I had everything to learn in reference to the proper quartermaster, forage master, and master of transportation, as I must needs have railroad transportation for my forage.
So beginning at the top, I made my way to General Beauregard’s headquarters; from there I was directed to division headquarters; thence to a quartermaster; and from one quartermaster to another, until I had about done the town—and finally found the right man. One lesson learned not to be gone over. Finding there was no difficulty in getting forage delivered in Corinth, I had now to hunt up the master of transportation and satisfy him of the impossibility of hauling it on wagons. Owing to the immense business just then crowding the railroad and the scarcity of rolling stock, it was really a difficult matter to get the transportation; but by dint of perseverance in the best persuasive efforts I could bring to bear, I succeeded in having one day’s rations sent out by rail. The next day the same thing as to transportation had to be gone over, and the next, and the next, and each succeeding day it became more difficult to accomplish, until a day came when it was impossible to get the forage hauled out at all.
I rode back to camp and notified the battery and the different headquarters that I would issue forage in Corinth, which would have to be brought out on horseback. All accepted the situation cheerfully except Rogers, who didn’t seem to like me, and I suppose it was because I called him Mr. Rogers, instead of General Rogers, as others did. He went directly to General Hogg and said: “I think that fellow Barron should be required to have the forage hauled out.” General Hogg said: “I do not think you should say a word, sir; you have been trying for a week to get a carload of ammunition brought out and have failed. This is the first day Barron has failed to get the forage brought out; if you want your horses to have corn, send your servant in after it.” I had no further trouble with Mr. Rogers.
I cannot remember exactly the time we spent at Corinth. It was from the time of our landing there until about the 29th day of May, say six or seven weeks; but to measure time by the suffering and indescribable horrors of that never-to-be-forgotten siege, it would seem not less than six or seven months. From the effects of malaria, bad water, and other combinations of disease-producing causes, our friends from home soon began to fall sick, and, becoming discouraged, the staff officers began to resign and leave the service. Rogers, I believe, was the first to go. He was soon followed by the quartermaster and commissary, and soon all the gentlemen named as coming to the front with General Hogg were gone, except John T. Decherd, who had been made quartermaster in place of William T. Long, resigned. I bought Long’s horse and rigging, and Decherd and myself continued to run that department for a time, and Tom Johnson was made ordnance officer in place of Rogers, resigned. General Hogg, being stricken down with disease, was removed to the house of a citizen two or three miles in the country, where he was nursed by his faithful servant Bob, General W. L. Cabell meantime being placed in command of the brigade. General Hogg died a few days later—on the day of the battle of Farmington.
The following “pathetic story of Civil War times” having been published in the Nashville (Tenn.) Banner, Youth’s Companion, Jacksonville (Tex.) Reformer, and perhaps many other papers, I insert it here in order to give its correction a sort of permanent standing:
A SOLDIER’S GRAVE
A pathetic story of Civil War times is related to the older people of Chester County in the western part of Tennessee by the recent death of ex-Governor James S. Hogg of Texas. Some days after the battle of Shiloh, one of the decisive and bloody engagements of the war, fought on April 6-7, 1862, a lone and wounded Confederate soldier made his way to a log cabin located in the woods four miles west of Corinth, Miss., and begged for shelter and food. The man was weak from hunger and loss of blood, and had evidently been wandering through the woods of the sparsely settled section for several days after the battle. The occupants of the cottage had little to give, but divided this little with the soldier. They took the man in and administered to his wants as best they could with their limited resources. They were unable to secure medical attention, and the soldier, already emaciated from the lack of food and proper attention, gradually grew weaker and weaker until he died. Realizing his approaching end, the soldier requested that his body be buried in the wood near the house, and marked with a simple slab bearing his name, “General J. L. Hogg, Rusk, Texas.”
The request was complied with, and in the years that passed the family which had so nobly cared for this stranger moved away, the grave became overgrown with wild weeds, and all that was left to mark the soldier’s resting-place was the rough slab. This rotted by degrees, but was reverently replaced by some passer-by, and in this way the grave was kept marked; but it is doubtful if the few people who chanced to pass that way and see the slab ever gave a thought to the identity of the occupant of the grave, until after the election of Hon. James S. Hogg to the governorship of the State of Texas. Then someone of Chester County who had seen the grave wrote Governor Hogg concerning the dead soldier. In a short time a letter was received, stating that the soldier was Governor Hogg’s father, and that he entered the Confederate army when the war first broke out, and had never been heard of by relatives or friends.
After more correspondence Governor Hogg caused the grave to be enclosed by a neat iron fence, and erected a handsome plain marble shaft over the grave. This monument bears the same simple inscription which marked the rough slab which had stood over the grave of one of the South’s heroic dead.
Conceding the truth of the statement that General J. L. Hogg, of Rusk, Texas, died at a private house four miles west of Corinth, Miss., in the spring of 1862, was buried near by, and that his grave has been properly marked by his son, ex-Governor James S. Hogg, not a word of truth remains in the story, the remainder being fiction pure and simple, and the same may be refuted by a simple relation of the facts and circumstances of General Hogg’s brief service in the Confederate army and his untimely death—facts that may easily be verified by the most creditable witnesses.