Tom Howard had been watching the progress of events and they seemed to him entirely too one-sided. Gripping his rifle more tightly and with the peculiar flash that came to his eyes when excited, he said, "Boys if I can get a squirrel bead on that fellow I can stop his racket." Slipping from tree to tree until he located the picket by the smoke of his gun, he drew his squirrel bead and fired. This time the yell of pain came from the other side, and Tom, with his eyes dancing and his face all aglow, turned to us and said, "Boys, I got him. I heard him holler." Tom's bead had stopped the racket.
"WHEN THIS CRUEL WAR IS OVER."
Tom was one of the "characters" in the company. Brave and generous, full of life and humor and always ready for duty, he would sometimes grow a little homesick. One day, Ab Mitchell, sitting on the edge of the trenches, began to sing, "When this cruel war is over." So far as I know, Ab had never taken first prize at a singing school, but as Tom listened, the plaintive melody of the air and the undertone of sadness in the verses carried him back to his old home in Oglethorpe. Every feature of the old plantation life rose vividly before him. He heard the "watch dog's honest bark bay deep-mouthed welcome" as he drew near home. He slaked his thirst from the "old oaken bucket that hung in the well." He heard the lowing cows and saw the playful gambol of his blooded stock cantering across the barn yard. He saw the blooming cotton fields and heard the rustling of the waving corn. But last and best of all, he felt the pressure of tiny arms about his neck, the touch of loving lips upon his own and then his dream was over. With tears in the heart if not in his eye, he thought of the life that lay before him; of the weary months or years that would come and go before these old familiar scenes would gladden his eyes again, and he could stand it no longer. Rising suddenly he seized his old rifle and turning to the singer, he said, "Ab Mitchell, if you sing another line of that song, I'll blow your blamed head off." And the concert ended without an encore.
"JIM, TOUCH OFF NO. 1."
During this campaign, Major Bledsoe of Missouri, commanded a battalion of artillery in Cleburne's division. A veteran of two wars, combining in his personality both the Southern and Western types, tall and gaunt, with no trace of Beau Brummellism in his physical or mental make-up, he was as stubborn a fighter as the struggle produced on either side, and yet away from the battlefield he was as gentle and as genial as a woman. So accurate were his gunners and so effective their fire, that it was said that no Federal battery had ever planted itself in range of his guns, when they were once unlimbered.
As he sat by his battery one day in May, '64, reading a newspaper, a stranger approached him and said, "Major, where are the Yankees?" Raising his eyes from the paper a moment he turned to one of his gunners and said: "Jim, touch off No. 1," and resumed his reading. "Jim" pulled the lanyard, there was a puff of smoke, the earth trembled from the concussion and the six-pound messenger sped on its mission of death. As it reached its mark, which had been hidden by the undergrowth in front, the "blue coats" were seen scattering in every direction. The stranger was answered.
As I may have no further occasion to refer to Major Bledsoe in these records, an incident or two occurring some months later may not be amiss in this connection. On October 29, '64, near Courtland, Ala., on our trip to Nashville, a grey fox crossed our line of march, passing between two of the regiments. The Major was riding by and spurring his horse to full speed, he gave chase, trying at every step to disengage his pistol from the holster for a shot at the animal. I think he failed to secure the "brush." The Reynard tribe must have been numerous in that section, for on reaching our camping place that evening, we found Pat Cleburne and his entire staff chasing another fox through an old field.
After the retreat from Nashville our division was ordered to North Carolina and in the transfer the trip from Selma to Montgomery, Ala., was made by steamer. The boat was old and slow, and the voyage monotonous. To enliven it, the boys, for lack of better game, would try their marksmanship on every buzzard that in silent dignity sat perched on the tall dead pines that lined the river bank. Major Bledsoe was with us, and constituting himself a "lookout" for the game, he entered into the sport with all the zest and ardor of a boy. He was probably no blood kin to "Jim Bludsoe" of Prairie Belle fame, but under similar conditions I believe that like "Jim" he would, regardless of his own fate, have
"Held her nozzle to the bank,
Till the last galoot was ashore."