TUSCUMBIA
We arrived and remained at Tuscumbia several days, awaiting the laying of the pontoons across the Tennessee river at Florence, Alabama, and then we all crossed over. While at Tuscumbia, John Branch and I saw a nice sweet potato patch, that looked very tempting to a hungry Rebel. We looked all around, and thought that the coast was clear. We jumped over the fence, and commenced grabbling for the sweet potatoes. I had got my haversack full, and had started off, when we heard, "Halt, there." I looked around, and there was a soldier guard. We broke and run like quarter-horses, and the guard pulled down on us just as we jumped the fence. I don't think his gun was loaded, though, because we did not hear the ball whistle.
We marched from Decatur to Florence. Here the pontoon bridges were nicely and beautifully stretched across the river. We walked over this floating bridge, and soon found ourselves on the Tennessee side of Tennessee river.
In driving a great herd of cattle across the pontoon, the front one got stubborn, and the others, crowding up all in one bulk, broke the line that held the pontoon, and drowned many of the drove. We had beef for supper that night.
EN ROUTE FOR COLUMBIA
"And nightly we pitch our moving tent
A day's march nearer home."
How every pulse did beat and leap, and how every heart did throb with emotions of joy, which seemed nearly akin to heaven, when we received the glad intelligence of our onward march toward the land of promise, and of our loved ones. The cold November winds coming off the mountains of the northwest were blowing right in our faces, and nearly cutting us in two.
We were inured to privations and hardships; had been upon every march, in every battle, in every skirmish, in every advance, in every retreat, in every victory, in every defeat. We had laid under the burning heat of a tropical sun; had made the cold, frozen earth our bed, with no covering save the blue canopy of heaven; had braved dangers, had breasted floods; had seen our comrades slain upon our right and our left hand; had heard guns that carried death in their missiles; had heard the shouts of the charge; had seen the enemy in full retreat and flying in every direction; had heard the shrieks and groans of the wounded and dying; had seen the blood of our countrymen dyeing the earth and enriching the soil; had been hungry when there was nothing to eat; had been in rags and tatters. We had marked the frozen earth with bloody and unshod feet; had been elated with victory and crushed by defeat; had seen and felt the pleasure of the life of a soldier, and had drank the cup to its dregs. Yes, we had seen it all, and had shared in its hopes and its fears; its love and its hate; its good and its bad; its virtue and its vice; its glories and its shame. We had followed the successes and reverses of the flag of the Lost Cause through all these years of blood and strife.
I was simply one of hundreds of thousands in the same fix. The tale is the same that every soldier would tell, except Jim Whitler. Jim had dodged about, and had escaped being conscripted until "Hood's raid," he called it. Hood's army was taking up every able-bodied man and conscripting him into the army. Jim Whitler had got a position as over-seer on a large plantation, and had about a hundred negroes under his surveillance. The army had been passing a given point, and Jim was sitting quietly on the fence looking at the soldiers. The conscripting squad nabbed him. Jim tried to beg off, but all entreaty was in vain. He wanted to go by home and tell his wife and children good-bye, and to get his clothes. It was no go. But, after awhile, Jim says, "Gentlemen, ay, Ganny, the law!" You see, Jim "knowed" the law. He didn't know B from a bull's foot in the spelling-book. But he said, the law. Now, when anyone says anything about the "law," every one stops to listen. Jim says, "Ah, Ganny, the law" (laying great stress upon the law)—"allows every man who has twenty negroes to stay at home. Ah, Ganny!" Those old soldiers had long, long ago, forgotten about that old "law" of the long gone past; but Jim had treasured it up in his memory, lo! these many years, and he thought it would serve him now, as it had, no doubt, frequently done in the past. The conscript officer said, "Law or no law—you fall into line, take this gun and cartridge-box, and march!" Jim's spirits sank; his hopes vanished into air. Jim was soon in line, and was tramping to the music of the march. He stayed with the company two days. The third day it was reported that the Yankees had taken position on the Murfreesboro pike. A regiment was sent to the attack. It was Jim's regiment. He advanced bravely into battle. The minnie balls began to whistle around his ears. The regiment was ordered to fire. He hadn't seen anything to shoot at, but he blazed away. He loaded and fired the second time, when they were ordered to retreat. He didn't see anything to run from, but the other soldiers began to run, and Jim run, too. Jim had not learned the word "halt!" and just kept on running. He run, and he run, and he run, and he kept on running until he got home, when he jumped in his door and shouted, "Whoopee, Rhoda! Aye, Ganny, I've served four years in the Rebel army."