Going up to regimental headquarters upon my return to the command I let out my horse for his board, procured a rifle and at once reported to our company commander for duty. The strictest military discipline was maintained by General Louis Hebert in every particular, and one day’s duty was very much like the duties of every other day, with a variation for Sunday. Of course the same men did not have the same duties to perform every day, as guard duty and fatigue duty were regulated by details made from the alphabetical rolls of the companies, but the same round of duties came every day in the week. At reveille we must promptly rise, dress, and hurry out into line for roll call; then breakfast. After breakfast guard-mounting for the ensuing twenty-four hours, these guards walking their posts day and night, two hours on and four hours off. Before noon there were two hours’ drill for all men not on guard or some other special duty; then dinner. In the afternoon it was clean up camps, clean guns, dress parade at sundown; then supper, to bed at taps. On Sunday no drill, but, instead, we had to go out for a review, which was worse, as the men had to don all their armor, the officers button up their uniforms to the chin, buckle on their swords, and all march about two miles away through the dust and heat to an old field, march around a circle at least a mile in circumference, and back to camps. All that, including the halting and waiting, usually took up the time until about noon.
With the understanding and agreement that I would be excused from the drill ground when I broke down, and when on guard be allowed to rest when I had walked my post as long as I could, I went on duty as a well man. For quite a while I was compelled to leave the drill ground before the expiration of the two hours, and when I found I could not walk my post through the two hours some one of my comrades usually took my place. It was necessary for me to muster all my courage to do this kind of soldiering, but the exertion demanded of me and the exercise so improved my condition that soon I no longer had to be excused from any part of my duties. We had men in the command afflicted with chronic diarrhea who, yielding to the enervating influence of the disease, would lie down and die, and that was what I determined to avoid if I could.
Among other bugle calls we had “the sick call.” Soon after breakfast every morning this, the most doleful of all the calls, was sounded, when the sick would march up and line themselves in front of the surgeon’s tent for medical advice and treatment. Our surgeon, Dr. Dan Shaw, was a character worthy of being affectionately remembered by all the members of the Third Texas Cavalry. He was a fine physician, and I had fallen in love with him while he was a private soldier because he so generously ex-erted his best skill in assisting Dr. McDugald to save my life at Carthage, Mo. He was a plain, unassuming, jolly old fellow, brave, patriotic, and full of good impulses. He was the man who indignantly declined an appointment as surgeon soon after the battle of Oak Hills, preferring to remain a private in “Company B, Greer’s Texas regiment,” to being surgeon of an Arkansas regiment.
Knowing that he had no medicine except opium, I would go up some mornings, through curiosity, to hear his prescriptions for the various ailments that he had to encounter. He would walk out with an old jackknife in his hand, and conveniently located just behind him could be seen a lump of opium as big as a cannonball. Beginning at the head of the line he would say to the first one: “Well, sir, what is the matter with you?” “I don’t know, doctor; I’ve got a pain in my back, a hurting in my stomach, or a misery in my head, or I had a chill last night.” “Let me see your tongue. How’s your bowels?” He would then turn around and vigorously attack the lump of opium with his knife, and roll out from two to four pills to the man, remarking to each of his waiting patients: “There, take one of these every two hours.” Thus he would go, down the line to the end, and in it all there was little variation—none to speak of except in the answers of the individuals, the number of pills, or the manner of taking. And what else could he do? He had told me frankly that he had nothing in his tent that would do me any good, but these men had to have medicine.
For water at Tupelo we dug wells, each company a well, using a sweep to draw it. In this hilly portion of the State good water could be obtained by digging from twenty to twenty-five feet.
Frank M. Taylor
First Captain of Company C, Third Texas Cavalry
From the time of the reorganization at Corinth up to the middle of July Company C had lost a number of men. Some, as McDugald and Dillard, were commissioned officers, and did not re-enlist; some were discharged on applications, and others under the conscription law then in force, a law exempting all men under eighteen and over forty-five years of age. Among those discharged I remember the two Ackers, Croft, I. K. Frazer, Tom Hogg, Tom Johnson, W. A. Newton, William Pennington, and R. G. Thompson, all of whom returned to Texas except William Pennington, who remained with us a considerable time, notwithstanding his discharge. In the regimental officers several changes had been made. After the death of Major Barker, Captain Jiles S. Boggess, of Company B, from Henderson, was promoted to major; Colonel R. H. Cumby resigned, and Lieutenant-Colonel Mabry was made colonel. J. S. Boggess, Lieutenant-Colonel, and Captain A. B. Stone, of Company A, from Marshall, promoted to major. About the first of August we moved up the railroad to Saltillo, about fifteen miles north of Tupelo, established camps, dug wells, and remained about three weeks. Here the Fortieth (?) or Mississippi regiment joined the brigade. This was a new regiment, just out from home, and it seemed to us, from the amount of luggage they had, that they had brought about all their household goods along. This regiment is remembered for these distinct peculiarities. Aside from the weight and bulk of its baggage they had the tallest man and the largest boy in the army, and the colonel used a camel to carry his private baggage. The tall man was rather slender, and looked to be seven feet high; the boy was sixteen or eighteen years old, and weighed more than three hundred pounds.