April 23rd, real fun began again, but we were alive, active, young, healthy, well-drilled, well-disciplined—in perfect fighting trim. For fear we would forget how to march a walking track was opened up from Tullahoma, and we marched daily five, ten, eighteen, twenty, thirty miles, making expeditions to all the surrounding towns—Wartrace, Bellbuckle, Hoover’s Gap, Duck River, Bridge, Railroad Gap, Manchester. Manchester was a nice little town in the hills, where there were numerous springs and streams in which we could swim. June 22nd we went there to relieve a Louisiana Regiment. When we arrived they were on dress parade, eleven hundred strong and their drill was simply fine, but they had never smelt powder nor marched at all. They wore nice caps, fine uniforms, white gloves, fine ——shop-made laced high shoes. They carried fat haversacks and new canteens, fine new fat knapsacks with lots of underclothing and even two pairs of shoes. They laughed at us in our shabby dress, with our dirty haversacks and no knapsacks. We had one suit of underwear wrapped in our blankets and our accoutrements were reduced to the lightest weight possible. They said we were too few to meet the enemy, but we told them we would stay with any who came to engage us. We also told them that they couldn’t get through one week’s campaign with such knapsacks. Some of the boys said, “We will follow in your wake and replenish our wardrobes.”
This was a sad camp to us. One of our men, Garret, got angry with Mr. Bragden, the Beef Sergeant, who divided the company rations. Taking his gun, he went to Bragden’s tent where he was unarmed and shot him like a dog. Garrett would have been lynched if the officers had not hurried him off to another part of the army.
June 27th we marched to Wartrace, June 29th to Tullahoma, June 30th we were deployed to build breastworks, but we retreated at eleven o’clock at night to Alisonia on Elk River.
July third, we camped in the Cumberland Mountains, near the school which had been established by General Polk and the Quintards. It was an ideal place for a school and I am glad to say it bears, today, an honored name among educators as the University of the South.
We had marched all day in the hot July sun, clouds of dust had parched our throats, and we were almost perishing for water when we reached the spring. As we rested at the side of the road whom should we see but our crack Louisiana Regiment—the one we had relieved at Manchester only ten days before. They were dusty, dirty, lame and halt, with feet sore and swollen in their tight shoes, a bedraggled and woe begone set of youngsters. How we joshed them.
“Don’t cry, mama’s darling;” “Straighten up and be men;” “Brace up like soldiers, so the army won’t be ashamed of you.” These were some of the commands we hurled at them. They would have fought us if they could have stopped, but a soldier cannot break ranks.
July 4th, 1863, we camped in the valley on the Tennessee River. Then we crossed the River at Kelly Ford to Lookout Valley. July 9th we marched through Chattanooga and camped at Turner’s Station.
August 17th we marched to Graysville. Here Dr. T. R. Ashford got a four days’ furlough. Dr. Ashford had married in Georgia and had gone with his bride to Arkansas and established himself as a physician. When the war broke out he joined the army from his adopted home, going out as assistant surgeon in our regiment. His wife returned to her mother in Georgia and he had not seen her for two years. As Graysville was near her home, she came to visit him and there they had a happy meeting.
Dr. Ashford, always kind and sympathetic, was a great favorite with the boys. Highly educated and a fine surgeon, he was modest and unassuming, a sincere Christian gentleman. After the war he settled in Georgia. Dr. Ashford, Dr. Arnold and I were close friends through those long dreadful years.
August 21st we camped at Harrison on the Tennessee River. On August 23rd we marched fourteen miles and camped at Gardner’s Ferry.