Our command moved steadily forward for a mile or more. The Yankees had time to halt the fleeing ones, form a line of infantry and make a stand in an old road in a thicket. We were to the left of the thicket, fighting all the time in this part of the field. I saw Jim Stimson fall, and being on the Infirmary Corps, I went to him. I cut his knapsack loose and placed it under his head, tied my handkerchief about his neck, and then saw that he was dead. I took up my gun again, when in front I saw a line of Yankees two thousand strong, marching on the flank. I could see the buttons on their coats. I thought I would get revenge for my dead comrade, so I leveled beside a tree, took good aim at a Yankee, and fired. About that time the Yankees fronted and fired. Hail was nothing to that rain of lead. I looked around and found only four of our company. One was dead, two were wounded and I was as good as dead I thought, for I had no idea I could ever get away. To be shot in the back was no soldier’s way, so I stepped backward at a lively pace until I got over the ridge and out of range, assisting the wounded boys at the same time. I had not heard the command to oblique to the right and close up a gap, and that was how we four happened to be alone in the wood. But I did some running then, found my regiment at the right of the thicket and fell into rank. When I got there the company was in a little confusion through not understanding a command, whether they were to move forward or oblique to right. Captain Shoup thought his men were wavering, so he stepped in front of the company, unsheathed his new sword and told the boys to follow him. He had scarcely finished with the words when a bullet struck his sword and went through wood and steel. The boys were red-headed. They told him he did not have to lead them. They were ready to go anywhere. So we went forward into the hottest of the battle where the roar of musketry was incessant, and the cannonading fairly shook the ground. Men fell around us as leaves from the trees. Our regiment lost two hundred and seventy, killed, wounded and captured. The battle raged all day and when night came the enemy had been pushed back to the verge of the Tennessee river. But our victory had been won at a great price, in the loss of our beloved General, Albert Sydney Johnston, who was killed early in the action.
General Beauregard, next in command, succeeded Johnston, and the battle opened again at daylight the next morning. During the night the enemy had been strongly re-inforced, and our men were steadily pressed back.
John Cathey, John R. Loftin, Waddell and I were among the wounded. We were sent to the field hospital several miles back in the wood. When the Surgeon General went to work on me he gave me a glass of whiskey, saying it would help me bear the pain. I told him I would not drink it. He then handed me a dose of morphine. I refused that. He looked me squarely in the face, saying, “Are you a damned fool?”
Our men, fighting stubbornly all the while, were pushed back by superior force through and beyond the Yankee camps we had captured so easily the day before, and at last retreated to Corinth, amidst a terrible storm of rain and sleet. We had lost about ten thousand men. That was the beginning of our real soldiering and the greatest battle we had been in. About thirty thousand men were killed, wounded and captured in those two days, the loss on each side being fifteen thousand.
At Corinth we awaited re-inforcements and prepared to renew the struggle. The Yankee forces advanced to Farmington, and we had a little more fighting. They captured one of our outposts, then we drove them back to their lines. Colonel Fellows was always on the front line. At this battle he plunged after some cavalry, following them he struck low, boggy ground. He got stuck in the mud and lost his hat, but succeeded in capturing the enemy.
We kept heavy guards at night. One night eighteen of our company were put on out-post, but our cavalry was still further out. George Thomas and I were stationed inside a fence row. We were told not to fire, and we were to be relieved before daybreak. We were not relieved however, and when day came we found ourselves only a short distance from the Yankee breastworks. We could have kept concealed by the grass and bushes, but George, who knew not the meaning of fear, stood in his corner of the fence-row. As he watched the Yankees walking their beats on the breastworks he thought it a good opportunity, and before I knew it, he had shot his man. Oh, then three cannon and two thousand infantry turned loose on us! The fence was knocked to smithereens. The rails, filled with bullets, crashed over us. Limbs falling from trees, covered us, and we were buried beneath the debris like ground hogs. We could not get out until darkness fell again. Then we found some of our cavalry, and tried to get back to our regiment, but the Yanks were between us and our command. The cavalry said we could fight our way through their lines, and we did. The cavalry soon left us behind. Yankees were shooting all around us and yelling for us to surrender, but we ran into a ravine, where we were hidden by the thick undergrowth, and so we got away.
On May 29, 1862, General Beauregard evacuated Corinth. We retreated on a dark night through a densely wooded bottom road. About two o’clock we halted. As soon as we stopped we dropped in the road anywhere, anyhow, and were fast asleep. Some devilish boy got two trace chains and came running over the sleeping men, rattling the chains, yelling “Whoa! Whoa!” at the top of his voice. Of course all the commotion—we had it then. Soldiers grasped the guns at their sides, officers called, “Fall in, fall in men.” When the joke was discovered it would have been death to that man, but no one ever knew “who struck Billy Patterson.”
We marched forty miles and camped at Twenty Mile Creek on the Mobile and Ohio railroad. On June 5th we reached Tupelo. We were put in Anderson’s Division of General Walker’s Brigade and camped at Tupelo until August 4th, when we were ordered to Montgomery, Ala.
We went on the train to Mobile. Here I went up into the city with Colonel Snyder and two of his friends, I being the only private among them. It seemed ages since we had enjoyed a square meal. We went into a fine restaurant near the Hotel Battle House, four half-starved Confederate soldiers. Just at the smell of oyster stew I collapsed. But we ordered everything—oysters raw, fried, stewed, fresh red snapper; just everything. We ate. I hope we ate! I think that proprietor was astounded, but it was only our pocketbooks that suffered. At last when we could eat no more, we had fine cigars, and as Dr. Scott said later, “This was good enough for a dog.”
We went from Mobile to the railroad station on the bay, where the water flows under the platform. The train was two hours late, so the boys shed their clothes, and in ten minutes there were a thousand men in the bay. They swam about splashing, kicking, diving, having fun until some of the boys went in where the palm flags were growing and espied a large alligator with his mouth wide open. In less time than it takes to tell it there was not a soldier in the bay. Strange! Men, who had stood firm in battle, had faced cannon, had endured shot and shell, now fled from one alligator!