| Introduction | [1] |
| The cause of conflict and the call to arms—Those whoanswered the call—An army of volunteers—Our great leader—Thecall comes home—First Company Richmond Howitzers—Back to civil life—Origin of this narrative. | |
| I. Sketch of Camp Life the Winter Before the Spottsylvania Campaign | [17] |
| Morton’s Ford—Building camp quarters—“Housewarming” onparched corn, persimmons and water—Camp duties—Camp recreations—A special entertainment—Confederate soldierrations—A fresh egg—When fiction became fact—Confederate fashion plates—A surprise attack—Wedding bells and a visithome—The soldiers’ profession of faith—The example of Lee, Jackson and Stuart—Spring sprouts and a “tar heel” story. | |
| II. Battle of the Wilderness | [63] |
| “Marse Robert” calls to arms—The spirit of the soldiers ofthe South—Peace fare and fighting ration—Marse Robert’s way of making one equal to three—An infantry battle—Arrivalof the First Corps—The love that Lee inspired in the men he led—“Windrows” of Federal dead. | |
| III. Battles of Spottsylvania Court House | [96] |
| Stuart’s four thousand cavalry—Greetings on the field ofbattle—“Jeb” Stuart assigns “a little job”—Wounding ofRobert Fulton Moore—A useful discovery—Barksdale’s MississippiCreeper—Kershaw’s South Carolina “rice-birds”—Feelingpulses—Where the fight was hottest—Against heavyodds at “Fort Dodge”—“Sticky” mud and yet more “sticky”men—Gregg’s Texans to the front—Breakfastless but “readyfor customers”—Parrott’s reply to Napoleon’s twenty to two—Thenarrow escape of an entire company—Successive attacks by Federal infantry—Eggleston’s heroic death—“Texas willnever forget Virginia”—Contrast in losses and the reasons therefore—Why Captain Hunter failed to rally his men—Having“a cannon handy”—Grant’s neglect of Federal wounded. | |
| IV. Cold Harbor and the Defense of Richmond | [189] |
| The last march of our Howitzer Captain—The bloodiestfifteen minutes of the war—Federal troops refuse to be slaughtered—Dr. Carter “apologizes for getting shot”—Deathof Captain McCarthy—A Summary. |
INTRODUCTORY
The Cause of Conflict and the Call to Arms
In 1861 a ringing call came to the manhood of the South. The world knows how the men of the South answered that call. Dropping everything, they came from mountains, valleys and plains—from Maryland to Texas, they eagerly crowded to the front, and stood to arms. What for? What moved them? What was in their minds?
Shallow-minded writers have tried hard to make it appear that slavery was the cause of that war; that the Southern men fought to keep their slaves. They utterly miss the point, or purposely pervert the truth.
In days gone by, the theological schoolmen held hot contention over the question as to the kind of wood the Cross of Calvary was made from. In their zeal over this trivial matter, they lost sight of the great thing that did matter; the mighty transaction, and purpose displayed upon that Cross.
In the causes of that war, slavery was only a detail and an occasion. Back of that lay an immensely greater thing; the defense of their rights—the most sacred cause given men on earth, to maintain at every cost. It is the cause of humanity. Through ages it has been, pre-eminently, the cause of the Anglo-Saxon race, for which countless heroes have died. With those men it was to defend the rights of their States to control their own affairs, without dictation from anybody outside; a right not given, but guaranteed by the Constitution, which those States accepted, most distinctly, under that condition.
It was for that these men came. This was just what they had in their minds; to uphold that solemnly guaranteed constitutional right, distinctly binding all the parties to that compact. The South pleaded with the other parties to the Constitution to observe their guarantee; when they refused, and talked of force, then the men of the South got their guns and came to see about it.