Aside from the motive already named, there is another which has had some influence in inducing me to publish these memories. In the generation that has grown up since the '60's, there is a disposition to undervalue the merits of the "Old South" and to discount the patriotism and the courage, the sacrifice and the suffering of those, who wore the grey. If these pages shall recall to my old comrades with any degree of pleasure, the lights and shadows of our soldier life, or shall bring to the younger generation, to whom the Old South is not even a memory, a truer conception of "the tender grace of a day that is dead" I shall be more than repaid for the labor involved in their preparation.
INDEX.
| INTRODUCTORY. | |
| Page | |
| Early History of the Oglethorpes | [7] |
| Off to the War | [9] |
| The Laurel Hill Retreat | [15] |
| CHAPTER I. | |
| Donning the Grey | [17] |
| My First March | [21] |
| My First Skirmish | [23] |
| My First Picket Duty | [29] |
| My First Battle | [30] |
| A Night Stampede | [33] |
| Three Little Confederates | [36] |
| CHAPTER II. | |
| A Change of Base | [38] |
| A Tramp With Stonewall Jackson | [43] |
| Aunt Hannah | [48] |
| A Ride With Belle Boyd, the Confederate Spy | [50] |
| Home Again | [55] |
| Roster of Oglethorpe Infantry | [56] |
| CHAPTER III. Service with 12th Ga. Battalion. | |
| A "Little Long" | [62] |
| 12th Ga. Flag | [63] |
| Col. Hogeland's War Diary | [65] |
| The Parson and the Gravy | [71] |
| Rations | [75] |
| CHAPTER IV. Coast Service. | |
| A Study in Insect Life | [80] |
| Fire and Fall Back | [86] |
| Skirmishing for Pie | [87] |
| Steed and the Sugar | [88] |
| Our Camp Poet | [91] |
| CHAPTER V. | |
| Dalton and Atlanta Campaign | [97] |
| Stripes on the Wrong Side | [107] |
| A Twilight Prayer Meeting | [109] |
| Tom Howard's Squirrel Bead | [112] |
| "Jim, Touch Off No. 1" | [114] |
| A Summer Day on the Firing Line | [117] |
| Saved from Death by a Bible | [123] |
| Battle of Kennesaw | [130] |
| Under Two Flags | [137] |
| Saved from a Northern Prison by a Novel | [142] |
| A Slave's Loyalty | [148] |
| CHAPTER VI. Nashville Campaign. | |
| A Christmas Day With Forrest | [155] |
| Gen. Bate as a Poet and Wit | [166] |
| Pat Cleburne as an Orator | [168] |
| "Who Ate the Dog?" | [171] |
| Courage Sublime | [178] |
| CHAPTER VII. The Closing Campaign. | |
| An Arctic Ride | [182] |
| A Sad Home Coming | [187] |
| Our Last Battle | [190] |
| Conclusion | [200] |
| Roster Co. A, 63rd Ga. | [204] |
| ADDENDA. | |
| Oglethorpe Infantry Co. B | [214] |
| Roster Co. A, 9th Ga., Co. C, 2d Ga. S. S. | [219] |
| SUPPLEMENT. | |
| One of My Heroes | [225] |
| Ben Hill and the Dog | [229] |
| The Rebel Chaplain and the Dying Boy in Blue | [236] |
INTRODUCTORY.
EARLY HISTORY OF THE OGLETHORPES.
On a winter's day in '51, in the old Capital at Milledgeville, Ga., Howell Cobb, then Governor of Georgia, gave his official sanction to an Act of the General Assembly incorporating a new military organization in the City of Augusta. If he had been told that ten years from that date he would be wearing the wreath of a Brigadier General in actual war and that the Company, to which his signature had given legal existence would be camped on Virginia soil, attached to the command of an officer, who will go down into history as one of the greatest captains of the ages, he would have smiled at the statement as the outgrowth of a distempered fancy. And yet such a prophecy would have found literal fulfilment.
In honor of the founder of the Georgia Colony the Company was named the Oglethorpe Infantry. Hon. Andrew J. Miller, was its first commander. Representing some of the best blood of one of the most cultured cities of the Old South, the company, by its proficiency in drill and its military bearing soon gained a distinguished position among the citizen soldiery of the State. On the death of Capt. Miller in 1856, Judge Ebenezer Starnes was chosen to succeed him. He, in time, was followed by John K. Jackson, afterwards a Brigadier General in the Confederate Army. During the captaincy of the last named, the volunteer companies of the State were ordered into camp at Milledgeville, Ga., by Gov. Herschel V. Johnson. Capt. Jackson, on account of illness in his family, could not attend and the Oglethorpes were commanded by Lieut. J. O. Clark. In the military drill and review, that occurred during the encampment the Oglethorpes presented the best marching front of any company present. Mr. Frank H. Miller, then Orderly Sergeant, attributes their success on this line, in part at least to the fact that nature had failed to endow him with a full share of what my father was wont to term "legability," and his shortened step, as Company Guide, rendered it an easier task for his comrades marching in column of companies to preserve their alignment.