Passing through Villanow, Lafayette, Alpine and Blue Pond, we arrived at Gadsden Oct. 20th. Resting here a day we are off again and for four days are tramping over the arid stretches of Sand Mountain, reaching the vicinity of Decatur, Ala., on the evening of the 26th. My journal for that day has this entry: "March delayed by bridge falling in. Very muddy tramp after nightfall. Slept under a corn crib." Two days later it has this entry: "Two ears of corn issued to each man as rations."
Decatur was occupied by a Federal force and after some skirmishing on the 27th and 28th we resumed our march, passing through Courtland on the 30th, Tuscumbia on the 31st and camping near the Tennessee river on the evening of that day. Here we remained until Nov. 13th, when we crossed the river on a pontoon bridge and camped near Florence. On the 14th we fortified our position and on the 19th Hood began his march to intercept Schofield in his effort to unite with Thomas at Nashville. Our brigade was detached to ferry the wagon train across the river and on the 20th we tramped 12 or 14 miles through a driving snowstorm in a bitterly cold wind to reach Cheatham's Ferry. I recall the fact that my face became so thoroughly chilled that the snow that fell on it failed to melt. After a week's work at the ferry, we left on the 28th in charge of the wagon train to rejoin our command. On Dec. 1st we struck the Nashville turnpike and on the 2d received our first information of the battle of Franklin, which had occurred Nov. 30, and in which our division had suffered so heavily. Passing through Columbia and Spring Hill on the 3d and Franklin and the battle ground in its front on the 4th we rejoined our division near Nashville on the 5th. Next day the Oglethorpes were on the picket line, were relieved on the 7th and on the 8th our brigade was ordered to report to Gen. Forrest near Murfreesboro. Under Forrest's direction the 9th and 10th were spent in tearing up railroad track encased in snow and sleet, terribly cold work.
Two days' rest with the thermometer at 9 degrees and on the 13th we are again destroying railroad track near Lavergne. On the morning of the 15th our brigade and Palmer's started out under Forrest to capture a Federal supply train. Fording Stone river and marching 10 or 12 miles in the direction of Murfreesboro Forrest is halted by an order from Hood to hold himself in readiness to go to his aid, as the battle of Nashville was in progress. Next day we moved back to the Nashville turnpike to await the issue at Nashville. During the night Forrest received news of Hood's defeat and with it orders to form a junction with the retreating army at Columbia.
As the details of our march to that point, of our assignment to the rear guard and of the retreat to Corinth, Miss., will be given in succeeding sketches, it is unnecessary to duplicate them here.
A CHRISTMAS DAY WITH FORREST.
It was the winter of '64, and to those of us who wore the grey it was likewise the "winter of our discontent." The hopes of the Confederacy were on the wane. The clouds that hung above it had no silver lining, free or otherwise. Sherman was "marching through Georgia," leaving in his wake the ashes of many a Southern home. Hood's reckless raid on Nashville had ended in disaster and his ragged battalions were making tracks for the Tennessee river, (some of them with bare feet) at a quickstep known to Confederate tactics as "double distance on half rations." The morale of the army was shattered if not destroyed. If the soliloquy of a gaunt Tennesseean as he rose from a fall in the mud on the retreat fairly represented the sentiment of his comrades, it was badly shattered. He is reported to have said: "Ain't we in a —— of a fix, a one-eyed president, a one-legged general and a one-horse Confederacy."
The Oglethorpes had fortunately escaped the butchery at Franklin against which Forrest had so strongly protested. As this immunity was due to our having been detained with Smith's brigade to ferry a salt train across the Tennessee river, salt had literally "saved our bacon."
After rejoining the army, we had been again detached to operate under Forrest near Murfreesboro and in this way had missed the rout at Nashville. Aside from these immunities the campaign had been one of exceptional hardships. The weather was bitterly cold and our wardrobes were not excessively heavy. The writer wore a thin fatigue jacket, with no overcoat and slept under a single blanket with the thermometer at nine degrees above zero. For a week prior to the retreat we had been engaged in the pleasant pastime of handling with ungloved hands, railroad ties and rails encased in sleet and snow. In addition to these hardships our commissary department was but illy supplied. And yet I cannot recall a single complaint made by a soldier during that campaign. It is my deliberate conviction, based upon this and similar evidence, that the Confederate soldier fought harder on shorter rations and grumbled less under greater privations than any soldier in history. The battle of Nashville opened on the morning of December 15th and for two days, thirty miles away, we listened to the thunder of the artillery and anxiously awaited the issue. At 1 a. m. Dec. 17th we were aroused to begin the longest, hardest forced march of our four years' service. Columbia, the point of junction with Hood's retreating army, is sixty miles away and we have to make it in forty-eight hours or run the risk of almost certain capture by a force ten times our own. It is cold, dark and raining—a dreary combination. The roads are a mass of mud and before we have tramped a mile one of my shoe strings breaks, leaving the shoe imbedded six inches deep in the yielding soil. Fishing it out, I resume the march with one bare foot, but the rocks in the mud cut and bruise it at every step and I am forced to stop for repairs. Taking the strap from my rolled blanket, slits are cut in the flaps of the shoe, the strap is buckled around so as to hold it in place, and I hurry forward to rejoin my command. For twenty-one hours we plow wearily through the mud, camping at 10 p. m. after marching 35 miles. Dr. McIntyre, in one of his Lyceum lectures, says that he had no proper appreciation of either absolute silence or absolute darkness until he stood within the central chamber of the Wyandotte cavern. If he had tramped with Forrest that winter day he would probably have added to his experience an adequate conception of absolute fatigue.
Five hours' rest and we are again on the march, but with slower step, for the strain of the previous day has told on the boys. In the early morning we halt to rest and I breakfast on an ear of corn picked up by the roadside, smearing it with black grease scraped from the bottom of my frying pan. About midday Forrest dismounts a number of his cavalry and gives up his own horse for a time to help the "barefoot" brigade along. By 10 p. m. we have made 25 miles and are completely fagged. Only five of the thirty Oglethorpes reach camp that night, Dick Morris, the writer, and three others whose names I do not recall. Dick is short-limbed, but he has the grit and the habit of getting there. On reaching Columbia we are assigned to the rear guard under Forrest and Walthall, who are instructed by Hood to sacrifice every man in the command if necessary to ensure the safety of his army. Manning trenches half filled with snow and holding the enemy in check for a few days so as to give Hood a fair start in the race, we begin our retreat Dec. 22 and on Christmas Eve camp near Pulaski, Tenn. Coiled up in a single blanket on the cold, bare ground, no visions of Santa Claus nor hopes of a Christmas menu on the morrow brighten our dreams.
Early Christmas morning we are gathered around the camp fire awaiting orders to march. Frank Stone, tall and thin, so thin that Charlie Goetchius had advised him always to present a side view to the enemy, as a minie ball would never reach his anatomy in that position, ambles up on a horse he had secured from one of the cavalry. Frank had tried manfully to keep up with the procession. Half sick, his shoes worn soleless and his feet lacerated and bleeding, he had marched when every step was agony and had crawled over the rocky portions of the road on his hands and knees until human nature could endure no more. Fortunately one of Forrest's cavalry gave him a lift that saved him from a Northern prison. Frank had no saddle and to supply that need the boys had piled his steed with blankets to a depth of five or six inches. As he rode up his eye fell on a lot of cooking utensils that had to be left for lack of transportation, and turning to Will Daniel he said, "Lieutenant, hadn't I better take along some of these?" Gen. Forrest was standing a few feet away, grave and silent. Attracted by Frank's question, he turned and inspecting the blanket outfit for a moment he said, "I think you've got a —— sight more now than you're entitled to." Frank made no reply, but the criticism was thoroughly unjust for no truer, braver soldier wore the grey.