Part 1 Recollations of Army Life During the Civil War 1861-1865

Recollections of Army Life During the Civil War  1861-1865
Augustus A. Dean
January 14, 1840- January 24, 1935

Company G, Second South Carolina Rifles, Moore's Rifles

The Second South Carolina Rifles was organized from extra companies initially intended for Orr’s Rifles. These companies were organized into a battalion that was officially designated the Fifth South Carolina Infantry Battalion. The unit was known more popularly as the First South Carolina Rifle Battalion. Sifakis in his monumental Compendium of Confederate Forces uses, in the South Carolina Volume, the Rifles designation, but also noted the use of Fifth Battalion. He also credits the fledgling battalion with the following battle credits, Edisto Island 3/29/62 and Coosawhatchie (Company B) 10/22-10/23/62. He states that the unit was organized on December 10, 1861, and increased to a regiment. That regiment was designated as the Second Infantry Regiment Rifles on May 12, 1862. The regiment was popularly known as Moore's Rifles. Major Thomas H. Boggs is listed as the commander of the battalion.

Major Thomas Hamilton Bogg, Born Liberty, South Carolina on May 6, 1823. Farmer in Pickens District in 1860. Captain Company E, Second S.C. Rifles, October 24, 1861; Major December 10, 1861; Lt. Col. May 12, 1862; Died at home in Pickens District of Fever July 6, 1862, Buried: Carmel Presbyterian Church Yard. (Lee’s Colonels, Krick)

The company left home a few days after being mustered into service. We went on to Sullivan’s Island and remained there a few days. We then went to John’s Island and to Wadmalaw Island. We then went back on the mainland and remained on the coast till the 26th of May. While on the coast we did not do any fighting but had to drill and stand guard a great deal and sometimes go on picket. I recollect one night Berry Harbin and I were on picket on the bank of a river. We had to go through a swamp to get to the place. There was another river just to the left so we were in the fork of the two rivers. The swamp was all around us, and no way to get out of there but along a path, and the Yankees were camped not far from us on the other side of the river. We were put there directly after dark and had to stay there till midnight. One of us had to be awake all the time. Berry Harbin was so uneasy that he was miserable for fear the Yankees would cross the river and come around behind us and capture us. A porpoise or large fish of some kind came along and made a noise like someone had hit the water with a plank. It scared Berry almost to death but I was asleep some of the time. Yet Berry was a good soldier; I recollect so well how he acted in the second battle of Manassas.

The islands listed are located on the South Carolina coast. Sullivan’s Island is the home of Fort Moultrie, and John’s Island is the home of Fort Johnson. Sullivan's and John's Island were the focus of the Union attempt to take Charleston in the early years of the War Between the States. Their defense was the focus of much military activity both on land and sea. Today, a sister island, Morris is best remembered for the popular movie, Glory. For more information about the defense of Charleston see Secessionville by Patrick Brennon and The Defense of Charleston Harbor by Johnson. Warren Ripley and Robert Rosen, authors of several books on the War Between the States and Charleston, have also produced a most impressive body of work on the defense of, and life in Charleston during the late unpleasantness.

Harbin, James B. (B) - Listed as Company E, Died at Charlottesville. Buried University Cemetery (K), J. Berry Harbin Died of Wounds Richmond (U)

While on the coast we moved camp often. Each company had a wagon to haul our tents and cooking utensils, besides a number of other wagons. But after going to Virginia it was very different for we had no tents a great deal of the time and we had to carry our cooking utensils with us ourselves or do without.

We left the coast May 26, 1862, and reached Richmond May 30, about sundown. We stayed that night at the edge of the city and Oh My! How it rained that night. It came down in torrents and as the men had no tents they had to stand and take it. James Jones and I got under an ambulance and though we did not keep dry, it was better than being out in the rain. The next day, May 31, we were marched two or three miles in the direction of Seven Pines but did not have to go into the battle. We were near enough to hear the firing though, and I was about as close as I wished to be. There was some fighting done Sunday morning, the first of June. We were fresh troops and had not had any hard service so we were kept either on picket or near the picket line nearly all of the time till the Seven Days battles started June 25. It rained a great deal during June. Where the land was level, the water stood on the ground all the time in many places and made it very disagreeable for us. Our company stayed at some old houses a good deal. One of them had fallen down but the boards were still on it. Some the others and I would crawl under it when it rained to keep out the rain, though we generally got wet. There were seven or eight dead horses within seventy or a hundred yards of where we stayed, that were killed in the battle of Seven Pines. We had to endure the stench while we were there. We used water out of a well that was right by the road and which had no cover over it. It was so full we could dip the water with a cup. When it rained muddy water from the road ran into the well.

Jones, James V. (B) - Sergeant Cause Unstated-Richmond  6/16/62  Buried Hollywood Cem. (K)

Gaines Mill, Frayser's Farm and Malvern Hill
Amateurs at War, The Mob has at it.

A number of horses were killed in the battle of Seven Pines that smelled bad near us but there were fields between our camp and the picket line where clover was growing. The road got so bad that the men marched through the fields. Wagons, ambulances, and artillery, also went through the fields. A great deal of the clover was mashed into the ground and rotted. It smelt worse to me than the dead horses; it was one of the most sickening smells that I ever smelt. Though it was less than a month from the time our regiment went to Richmond till the Seven Days fight commenced two-thirds of our company was sick by that time and a number had died.

The Seven Days battle commenced on Wednesday, June 26, 1962. There was not much fighting done that day, more fighting done the next day. A brigade that we belonged to until a few days before the fighting began was in the fight on Thursday and was pretty bad cut up. A good many of the men were killed and wounded. The three principal battles were Gaines Mill, on Friday, June 27th, Frasier’s Farm on the 30th, and Malvern Hill on July 1. On Thursday evening about dark we crossed the Chickahominy River and camped not far from where we crossed. The next morning, Friday 27th, we started early and went down on the east side of the river. We passed through a number of camps where the Yankees had been but had left, though a few tents were about all they had left. About ten or eleven o’clock we were halted and stacked arms in a field. We were ordered to leave our guns though it was very warm. There was a piece of weeds not more than fifty yards in front of us where the trees were large and no undergrowth. The shade certainly looked tempting but we were not allowed to go near it, though there were no Yankees about. After remaining there for an hour and a half or two hours we were ordered to fall in and take arms, march out into the road, and turn down toward the Mill. After going a short distance Col. Moore gave the command “Halt”, Front, Load, Load at will." What a feeling that produced in me. I knew it meant going into battle, or expecting to, and I might be a corpse before night. We marched on down to the mill and turned down the branch a short distance, then went up the hill in the direction of the enemy. We were ordered to lie down. The firing commenced in front of us. It was about the heaviest infantry firing that I ever heard in my life. There were a great many cannons firing too and the minie balls passed over our heads by the hundreds. It seemed to me that a great many of them just passed over the hill and then turned right toward my head. I was almost sticking my nose in the ground I was so afraid that one of them would hit me. We lay there for some time while the battle was raging in front of us. While there an officer rode up in front of our regiment and ordered us forward. A good many of the men jumped right up, but Col. Moore ordered us to lie down and the officer ordered us forward again. Many of us got up the second time. Col. Moore ordered us to lie down and said he was the officer to get orders from. After that we paid but little attention to that fellow. He may have been sent back to bring up reinforcements, but I think he was drinking and was trying to lead us into the battle and distinguish himself. He should have been with his own command. Soon afterwards, Col. Moore ordered us forward. I thought as soon as we got to the top of the hill, fifty or seventy-five yards distant, that we would see the whole face of the earth covered with dead men, the fining (firing) had been so tremendous. We could not see a single one till we had gone nearly half a mile; the fighting was so much further than I had thought. It was while we were moving forward that the shells from the enemy’s guns were flying and bursting around us, which made it extremely unpleasant for us. One shell passed very near us, and J.L. Humphreys jumped behind a bunch of sprouts not much more than knee high and not larger than my finger. This reminded me of the old saying that a drowning man will catch at a straw and a man in battle will jump behind one when a shell comes near him.

Col. Moore, John Vinro Moore, Lawyer at Anderson Courthouse, Anderson District, Anderson, S.C., Editor of the True Carolinian, Captain, Company F, Second S.C. Rifles, October 29, 1861, aged 35; Colonel, May 12, 1862, Mortally Wounded in Action at Second Manassas, Buried Haymarket, Virginia. (Lee’s Colonels, Krick) Moore was the namesake of the Rifles. Dean covers his death later in his work.

Humphreys, John L. - Second Lieutenant (B)(V) - Wounded at Wilderness, Captured (U)

The Yankees had their line formed along a branch where the firing was so heavy in front of us. The front line was close to the branch and just behind it was another line. As the hill was steep the rear line could fire over the heads of the front line. A little higher up the hill they had their cannons, which could fire over the heads of both, while our men had to advance across an open field for a long ways. I saw a few of our men dead there. The Yankees had left before we got there and our men had followed them. We were halted when we got to where the cannons were, to get the men in good line. There were two horses to a gun that I passed, and one was down. I think it was dead; the other was wounded in several places. It had turned with its head toward the gun and was standing there, squealing. He was badly hurt and so excited that he did not know what he was doing. We only stopped a minute, but while there another line of men who was coming fired into us. The firing was still going on in front of us and those men behind shooting at us. Some man fifty or sixty yards from me hollered, Cease that firing g-- d--- you, you’re shooting your own men. Though there was so much shooting all around us I could hear him as if everything was perfectly quiet. I thought what in the name of common sense does the man mean by using such oaths in battle. But before the war was over I heard it so often it did not surprise me at all. We went on and saw many of the Yankees dead not far from where their lines had been. Our regiment was detached from the rest of the brigade and sent over another hill to take a battery, but some other troops had taken it before we got there. We went right on and were but a short time in reaching it. Before we got there we were fired into by our own men again. There was a man killed right close to me. By that time it was getting late, it was smoky, and they thought we were Yankees. There was some Yankees down in a hollow between our regiment and the men that fired into us. They came up to us thinking we were Yankees till they got close to us, about thirty of them. We took them prisoner. One of them came up holding his gun as if he were going to shoot. Our fellows ordered him to surrender. I think that he was scared or excided (excited) and hardly knew what he was doing and had no notion of shooting. Jim Maroney ordered him two or three times to throw down his gun but he did not. Maroney shot and killed him. I always thought he did wrong. The next Monday evening Maroney was killed in the battle of Frasier’s Farm. We went on to the battery we were ordered to take and stayed there some time. There was a pole of knapsacks there, enough to fill a two-horse wagon. They were full of paper, envelopes, pens, pencils and such things, as soldiers need. I could have taken anything I wanted but the weather was hot and I thought I would probably have to go into battle the next day and didn’t want them.

Maroney, James Company K, Second S.C. Rifles (B) Maroney, James, Company K, Second Rifles, Killed 6/30/62 Frasier’s Farm listed in some sources as Company I (K)

I got a Yankee canteen, haversack, and blanket, as theirs were a great deal better than the ones we had. Where the Yankees formed their lines they laid down their overcoats, knapsacks, and blankets and left them there. This was very much appreciated by our men as we certainly made good use of them. There were many more there than we could possibly use. After that I would have been ashamed to have been seen with a Confederate canteen or haversack for it would have been thought I was a recruit or a hospital rat and had never seen a battle. The battery we were ordered to take was supported by U.S. Regular Cavalry and our men had to go up a steep hill to reach it. The Yankee Cavalry charged them as they were going up the hill. Our men killed eight or ten of their horses in front of the battery. They were fine looking horses. We stayed a while at the battery, then went back near where the Yankees had two lines of battle near the branch. We camped there that night; the Yankees lay pretty thick around us, a number of them a short distance from where I slept.

I walked about over the battlefield some after dark and talked to some the wounded Yankees. One of them belonged to the 22nd Massachusetts Regiment and was wounded in the hip, the bone was shivered. He asked me to turn him over, as he was tired lying in the same position so long. I did but he turned back very quick. He screamed, as the pain was so great when I turned him on the wounded side. He told me he had a wife and two children at home, I told him I hoped he would get back to them. He shook me by the hand for some time. I have no idea he ever saw home again. We stayed there on the battlefield all day Saturday. I walked over the battlefield again a good deal, talked to some the Yankees and offered them water when I thought they needed it. There was a field hospital near us that day and several Yankee doctors were there attending to their wounded. They cut off a great many arms and legs, a pile almost enough to make a one-horse wagonload. Some of our men would go up close and look on but I did not care to be nearer than twenty or thirty yards.

We whipped the Yankees the day before and drove them off the field, killed and wounded a great many of them. We lost a great many men too. The Yankees had a strong position and fought well. They made us pay dearly for the victory won.

There were a number of Yankees burying their dead. I noticed they dug a grave near the hospital eighteen or twenty feet long and wide enough to lay men crossways. They filled it pretty nearly full, but did not put much dirt on the men. You will see from the account I have written that our Regiment did not do much of the fighting but we did what we were ordered to do. We had but few men killed or sounded (wounded) in our Regiment then.

On Sunday morning, June 29, 1862, we marched back up the river for some distance, crossed and went back to our camp near Richmond. We did not stop but turned down in the direction of Malvern Hill. On Monday evening we were in the battle of Frasier’s Farm. We formed in line of battle along a fence with a house in front of us and a patch around the house. There was a large cherry tree full of ripe cherries. Several men climbed up in it and were eating cherries when our artillery commenced firing at the Yankees and they replied with fourteen cannons. Those fellows did not climb down; they just fell out of that tree. They got enough cherries all at once and did not want anymore.

Our battery that commenced firing had three cannons. They went down about a hundred and fifty yards in front of us and opened on the enemy. When the Yankees replied with their fourteen cannon in a few minutes our fellows came back to the house that was in the patch in front of us, where we were lying. They put one cannon at one corner of the house, another at the other, and commenced firing. There were people in the house at the time. The left one of the guns where they first opened fire, said the enemy got the range so well they had to move. They were right in front of us and their firing drew the enemy’s firing on us. The shells were bursting in front of us and all about us. Many of them passed over us and went through the pines behind us, striking trees and limbs. It was awful, there is where I was SCARED so. I had never heard such firing in my life and had rather had a hole three feet deep in the ground than to have had all the gold that has ever been found in California. Just then I was so scared I was weak and felt that I was hardly able to get up. It was not long until (we) were ordered forward and I went all right.

We marched out into the road and turned in the direction of the enemy. We had gone only a short distance when a shell struck C.B. Cox, a man of our company in the back of the head and killed him so quick I don’t think he ever felt it. We went on a short distance further to the right and passed the cannon our men had left where they first opened fire on the enemy. As we were passing it a shell from the Yankee’s guns passed over our heads close to us. Major Keys dodged down nearly to the ground. I said, Major, does it scare you? He said, Yes, it does. I said, It don’t scare me no more than nothing. As soon as I got up and started forward in line of battle from where we had been lying that scared feeling passed off. After passing that gun we faced the left and moved forward in line of battle. going down through an old field, crossing a swamp where there were bushes, mud, and bamboo briars. It was such a bad place that I could hardly have gone at all had I not been going into a battle or something of the kind. We went up through an old field for a short distance and crossed a fence into a field. As soon as we got into it the Yankees commenced firing at us with the fourteen cannon, which were loaded with grape and canister, and small arms too. We were not more than a hundred yards from them and our men were mowed down but we kept advancing just as fast as we could shooting all the time. One time I bit off the end of the cartridge and did not take time to take all the paper off it but put it in my gun and tried to ram it down, but it did not go. I was walking up and down the line trying to get it down. I spoke to C.E. Horton and said, Lige, I have got my gun choked and can’t get the ball down. He said, Throw it down and get another. I did, my gun that was choked was number 2143, the gun that liked was number 2222 and I carried that gun until I was made lieutenant, over two years. About that time I heard the command, “Fix bayonets” and then “Charge”. As soon as I heard that I began yelling as loud as I could. We started at double quick and drove the Yankees back, captured those cannons, followed the Yankees down to another branch and swamp. I noticed Lieut. Cox, who was in command of our company, walking along by the side of the swamp, looking for a place to cross. He fell forward on his face, drew up his legs and straightened them out, that was his last. A ball had gone through his left arm into the side about his heart. He was a good soldier and a good man.

Cox, Christian B. (B) - Died Richmond Virginia 12/21/64 (K) Killed at Frazier’s Farm (U)

Keys, Major L. - Second Lieutenant (B) (V) - Wounded at Second Manassas, Discharged at Richmond (U) See Traditions and History of Anderson County, Active during Reconstruction with the Home Police.

Horton, Charles E. - First Lieutenant (B)(V) Elijah C. Horton  Promoted from Sergeant, First Lieutenant (U)

Cox, John M. - First Lieutenant (B)(V) - KIA Savage Station 6/29/62 (K) Killed at Frazier’s Farm (U)

As I reached the side of the swamp, Frank Davis, a fellow that belonged to company F of our regiment, shot into the bushes down in the swamp, and just as he fired a ball struck his head. He fell so near me I could have caught him. He was badly wounded but so far as I know he is still living. I went on up through a old field to another old field and saw a GREAT MANY Yankees away over at the far side of it. I thought we ought to go right on for I was very much enthused at what we had done. I thought we could whip all the Yankees that we could find but we stopped there and fired for some time. An officer said, “Don’t run”. I thought he was speaking to me and I said, I am not running but am shooting as often as anybody. I had no idea of running but directly noticed that nearly all of our men had left. I could see a great many of them going down through the old field toward the branch. I started too, but thought we would go only a short distance, reform our line and advance again. They kept on and I went on down to the branch and into the swamp. Before I got to it I could see some of our men going across the field where we had captured the Battery, though I did not know why they were retreating. After getting into the swamp I found a spring of water. As it was a hot day I lay down and took a hearty drink, about that time the Yankees poured a heavy volley into the swamp and I knew then why our men had fallen back. The brigade on our right gave way and the Yankees were about to get in our rear. The Yankees were very close to me when they fired into the swamp but I could not see them. The Yankees came back to the battery we had taken from them but another line of our men came up and drove them back again. The fight was kept up until after dark and the enemy was driven off the field though again we lost a great many men. Our company had thirty-two in the fight if I recollect right, about half of them were killed or wounded. Five of them were killed while we were advancing on that battery. I noticed that when the grape and canister fired from those guns struck the ground near us they would knock the dirt eight or ten feet high. How they did mow our men down!

Frank Davis, Francis M. Davis, Company L, Second South Carolina Rifles (B) Francis Davis, Company L, Second South Carolina Rifles  1/6/64  Knoxville, Tn., DOW (K)

The next day, the first of July 1862, the battle of Malvern Hill was fought but our command was not in that battle. After that battle the Yankees retreated, went down the James River, very much demoralized.

... and so the mob went to war  the Second Rifles arrived in Virginia late, missing First Manassas and Seven Pines. They were assigned to R.H. Anderson's Brigade during these early battles. For more information about George McClellan's abortive Peninsular Campaign See Vol. I of Lee's Lieutenants, by Douglas Southall Freeman. Also worthy of note for the relationship to this particular unit are the following:

The Struck Eagle, A Biography of Brigadier General Micah Jenkins and a History of The Fifth South Carolina Volunteers and the Palmetto Sharpshooters, James J. Baldwin III. Perhaps the best book on these units in these particular battles. Certainly the best book on Jenkins/Bratton's Brigade.

The South Carolinians, Asbury Cowart - Cowart was Jenkins friend and classmate at the South Carolina Military Academy. He was also the Colonel of the Fifth South Carolina. The Fifth was also in Jenkins and Bratton's Brigade for most of the war.

Reminiscences of a Private, Frank Mixon - Mixon served in Hagood's First Regiment and provides a lively look at the war. Hagood, was known as the boy Colonel from South Carolina, although General Johnson Hagood is better known. Hagood's First South Carolina also served in Jenkins and Bratton's Brigade for the majority of the war.

The Horton Letters, covering the men and fighting mentioned above.

Second Manassas:
Run you old Hare, RUN! Drive them boys, Drive them! Old Pete is ahere!

After the Seven Days battle in front of Richmond in 1862 our command remained near Richmond for some time then went to Manassas and were in the second battle of Manassas. It was fought August 30. Our Brigade [Jenkins] was then a part of Pickett’s division, the right Brigade of the division. The whole division was ordered forward at the same time, yet owing to the formation of the enemy line, the left of the division struck the enemy before we did in on open field. We could see the men on our left as they passed a piece of woodland into a field. The Yankees had their lines formed of both infantry and artillery. As soon as our men entered the field they commenced to fire on them. We could see gaps cut through our lines. A great many of our men were killed or wounded but they would close up and go right on and keep the line intact almost as though they were on dress parade. They were Virginians and splendid soldiers, certainly fought well that day. They soon got up very close to the Yankees and Oh My, how those Yankees did shoot those cannon. Our men got within a few steps of the Yankees and though we were a good piece from them we could see it all plainly. One of our batteries of several cannon came out into the field near us and commenced firing at the Yankees. The first shell burst right in the Yankee line and it just mowed them down. Our artillerymen fired very rapidly and the shells passed only a few feet above our heads as they were on a little higher ground. They were enfilading the enemy, that is, they were shooting along their line. Our men who were advancing on the Yankees were very close to them. When our artillery opened on them with such a destructive fire, they commenced to running, at first, one or two here and there, then the whole line broke and went down the hill as fast as they could. When we saw the way our artillery was slaughtering them, we whooped and yelled more like demons than men. Just to say we were glad doesn’t express it but we kept right on at double quick and we were soon into it too, then it was not half so funny. Gen. J.E.B. Stewart led our Brigade for a good piece. He was riding at a lope with big Newfoundland dog running at his horse’s head, jumping at him. He seemed to be enjoying it all finely, but I thought, Oh, dog, if I had your legs and liberty how I would get away from here!  

Jenkins, General Micah Jenkins, The Prince of Edisto , One of four South Carolina Military Academy graduates to be promoted to the rank of general officer in Confederate Service. Founder with Evander Laws, (A second of the four Citadel men.) and Asbury Cowart of the King’s Mountain Military Academy, the relationship and implications of the relationship of Laws to Jenkins would resound throughout the Army of Northern Virginia. Certainly at least two battles were lost, because of these feelings and perhaps the Confederacy did die on a cross that was built on the ambition of both, as balanced on the fulcrum that was James Longstreet. It is a story that had great and direct impact on the life of Lieutenant A.A. Dean.

J.E.B. Stewart  James Ewell Brown Stuart- West Point Class of 1854, present at Harper’s Ferry with Colonel Robert E. Lee. This is his great moment of glory, he is at his brightest in the moments leading up to Second Manassas. He will fall at Yellow Tavern, the time of the cavalier having died with him. Wade Hampton will replace him and push on with a grim weariness and dogged determination that may have been beyond a young leader. To everything there is a season.

I had an old pair of shoes that were nearly worn out. One of them came untied and I stopped to tie it. There were a number of others who were behind the line. Col. Moore, who was in command of our Regiment said, “Get into that line”, so I ran on without tying my shoe. It soon came off and I went on without it. There was a good many briars in the field and how those briars did rake my foot but I went on just the same. We advanced at double quick for a long ways that was why so many were behind the lines. The enemy opened on us with artillery when we were several hundred yards from their line of battle, and the shells, grape and canister, came like hail when we were still in the open field. We could not see the enemy or return the fire. It was certainly trying on us. We went right on and when we were one or two hundred yards from them, a grape shot struck Captain Pullian above the knee and shivered the bone. Though I heard a great many were wounded, I never heard such screaming in my life. He screamed at the very top of his voice and what an impression it made on me but we were soon out of hearing and engaged with the enemy.

Pulliam, Zachary C. Second Lieutenant, Company A Orr’s First Rifles, Pulliam, Z.C., Captain Company H, Moore’s Second S.C. Rifles (B) Pulliam, Zachary C.- Captain - Company H, Second South Carolina Rifles  Died 10/12/62   Died of Wounds  Warrenton, Va.   Liberty Springs S.P.C.   Roll of Honor (K)

They were formed at the north side of the field and the line extended up to the east corner of the field and down the east side for some distance, while our line lacked a good deal of reaching the east of the field. We had advanced (advanced) in line of battle nearly a mile, most of the way at double quick. Just before the enemy fired at us, Capt. Seabrook, who was Gen. Jenkins, Assistant Adjutant General, came riding up the line from the left. He spoke to Col. Moore, who was behind our company, said, “You are almost exhausted, aren’t you, Colonel?” Col. Moore caught a long breath and said, “Yes, I am”. That was all Capt. Seabrook said. He turned and rode back to the left, had ridden only seventy or a hundred yards when the enemy’s line of infantry fired a volley and Capt. Seabrook went down to rise no more. I suppose what he said to Col. Moore was the last words he ever spoke. Col. Moore was mortally wounded at the same time. We were then only twenty or thirty steps from the Yankees and both lines were firing as fast as they could. But though we were so close together a great many balls shot at us passed over our heads. I thought at the time that if I could have caught them I could have held up my hand caught it full. The enemy soon ran and we were not sorry to see them go. One great big heavy Yankee got behind a tree and commenced shaking his handkerchief, but the firing did not stop. After trying that several times he concluded that it would not do and started to follow the others but he ran only a few steps until he fell.

Seabrook, Cato A.-Captain, Company I, Fifth Infantry - Seabrook, C.A.- Adj, Palmetto Sharpshooters (B) Cato A. Seabrook, Captain (AAG) P.S.S. 8/30/62  KIA  Haymarket Virginia(K)

At the time we were so warmly engaged with those Yankees in front, those to our right were shooting at us and the line that extended down the east side of us marched out into the field and fired on us. I thought they were coming around in our rear and our Regiment would be surrounded but they fired only one volley and went back into the woods. I thought then they were a lot of cowards but directly I saw another line of our men coming and then I knew why those Yankees went back into the woods so quickly.

While our line and the Yankees were up close together, I saw a rabbit between the two lines and though it was jumping two feet high it was not going any faster than I could walk. I saw a dead rabbit there the next morning and I suppose it was the same one. We had driven those Yankees in front away before reinforcement reached us. They followed them on and had some hard fighting too and lost a good many men.

Gen. Jenkins, who was in command of our Brigade, was wounded that day and Capt. Seabrook killed. Col. Moore, mortally wounded, and Capt. Pulliam, who was acting Lt. Col. was mortally wounded. Capt. White, who was acting as Major, was killed and our adjutant, J.Clark Wardlaw, was wounded. Yet our company did not have a single man killed on the field and but one mortally wounded, though there were a number of the company wounded severely. Gen. Pope commanded the Yankee army at the second battle of Manassas and John Esten Cook in his account of the battle said that he arrived at his headquarters in a car decked out with flags. It is said that before that he had seen nothing of the enemy but their back. He issued an order to the army in which he said “Let us study the probable line of retreat of our opponents and leave our own to take care of itself. Let us look before and not behind. Disaster and shame lurk in our rear”. But the sequel was the most grotesque of commentaries on the general’s military theory. It was on his line of retreat that Jackson struck the mortal blow at him. After the fight was over I guess that the conceited general was willing to admit that he had seen something more than the backs of his enemy and he realized more fully than ever that disaster and shame lurked in the rear. After the battle of Manassas we went on to the Potomac River and crossed it. Though it is a good big river we had to wade it though we did not mind that much. We were in Maryland where we stayed seventeen or eighteen days during that time we had very little to eat. Most of what we ate was apples and roasting ears of corn. The people of Maryland had the finest apple orchards I ever saw anywhere. Many of the trees were very large and very full but they were all late apples. I did not see a single ripe apple all the time I was in Maryland thought we stayed in the state till after the middle of September. But we ate a good many of them and we ate a good many roasting ears too. We would make a fire of sticks and set an ear of corn on it and frequently the outside of the grains would be brunt black and in next to the cob would hardly be warm. Sometimes we would eat the corn without cooking it but a man has to be pretty hungry to enjoy eating roasting ears without cooking them. A great many of the men had bowel trouble and we were a sorry looking lot when we came out of Maryland.

Capt. White William H. White, Captain, Company A, Second S.C. Rifles (B) No Listing (K)

J.Clark Wardlaw  Sergeant-Major of Company B, Orr’s First S.C. Rifles  J.Clark Wardlaw  Adjutant Second Rifles  Moore’s (B)No listing (K)

Gen. Pope- West Point Class of 1846  Related to everyone from Washington to Lincoln, General John Pope proved you needed more than a good lineage and a lot of talk to run an army. Although he had served well in the West, he undoubtedly started to believe his own press. The man with his headquarters in the saddle, found it was a good place to be when you fought Lee, Jackson and Longstreet.

Following Second Manassas, Jackson pushed on to seal the victory at Ox Hill. The weather, and time, the real enemy to all of us, conspired against him. Lee turned his eyes toward Maryland and a little town called Sharpsburg that waited in quiet repose. Yet to be Lieutenant Dean was not the only one without decent shoes. The men were tired; there was a shortage of everything but faith, in spite of Commissary Banks and the generous Pope. No matter, Marse Robert and their States called, so they pushed on to the limit, and then beyond, they did what the southern soldier always did best, followed their leaders north and went a step further than they believed they could, so many missing faces. Perhaps with a little luck, a good turn of the card then everyone could enjoy a good cigar, like the ones old Jack had just gotten them After all it was going to be Little Mac again, and he never could foresee or understand Lee’s plans but that was all yet to be.

Sharpsburg:
Luck of the draw... Burnside's Bridge, the best place to be, on the worst day on the continent.

There were three fights while we were in Maryland. The first resulted in the capture of Harper’s Ferry, with eleven thousand prisoners. The second was the fight of South Mountain. Our command was not in that, only a part of the army was in that but the whole of our army was in the battle of Sharpsburg. It was the bloodiest battle of the whole war, more men killed or wounded than in any other one days fight in the war. A Texas Regiment had sixty-five out of every one hundred killed or wounded. A Massachusetts Regiment lost as many. Our command was on the right. We were east of the little town of Sharpsburg, and there was not much fighting done in our part of the line, and we lost but few. The heavy fighting was at the center and left of the line. Our men would drive the enemy back and then they would drive our men back, and it went on that way for hours. I could tell by the firing when the enemy was driving our men back and I felt very uneasy at times, but our men would rally and drive the enemy back. Thus it went on till night, and neither side had much to brag on. I should have stated that they shelled our part of line a great deal and the line of their infantry made an attack on us but were easily driven back and did not renew the attack.

Gen. McClellan commanded the Yankee Army with 87,000 men and Gen. Lee had only 37,000 and our men were in mighty bad shape too. We lay on the battlefield that night and stayed there all the next day so McClellan had another chance at us if he wished to try it again, but he did not care to renew the fight.

I recollect that I found a tin cup that would hold about a pine (pint), and had a little piece of meat about as big as my two fingers. George Scott had a piece of cabbage, just enough to fill the cup. We boiled the meat and cabbage and that was our supper. As well as I recollect we were the only one that had any supper that night. The second night after the battle we left Sharpsburg and came back into Virginia. We crossed the Potomac River just after daylight. The Yankees followed us and there was some fighting with our rear guard before we crossed the river, but it did not amount to much. Some of the Yankees crossed the river and came a mile or two after us, thinking our army was whipped and badly demoralized. But when they attacked our men they found that they were badly mistaken. They got a whipping and were driven across the river with a heavy loss. There was only a part of our army engaged in that fight, our command (was) not in the fight.

McCellan - George Brinton McCellan, Pennsylvania - West Point, Class of 1846 - Graduated with one of the best known classes of the Point, McCellan finished near the top of that class. His ability was proven in his early years and when given army command his skills resulted in his being recognized as without peer when it came to training an army. Sadly, he could never seem to fight his army well. He failed in both the Peninsular Campaign and again at Sharpsburg. His failure there was especially unique in that he had access to Lee's plans, which had been found wrapping a group of cigars in an abandoned camp. He ran as the peace candidate against Lincoln and left the country saying, "I am going somewhere that I will hear no evil spoken against me." He returned following the war and served as Governor of New Jersey.

George Scott - Scott, George H. (B) Wounded at Sharpsburg, Captured (U)

We camped a few miles from the river and stayed there several days, then came back to Martinsburg and camped there for some time. While there I found I had body lice on me and I thought what in the world will the people at home think if they hear that I am lousy. They will think I have lost all self-respect and will be ashamed of me! and I was ashamed of myself. But I soon heard that Col. Thompson had lice on him and I thought if the colonel, who had a horse to ride and could carry more clothes than a private in ranks and a much better chance to keep clean and clear of such things and yet get lousy, it could not be expected that a private could keep clear of them. I don’t know how the lice got started but from then on until the end of the war ended we had them all the time. I would wash my clothes and boil them and get rid of the lice but in a little while they would get on me again, I could see them crawling on the ground in camp or in breastworks and at picket posts. They were certainly a great pest.

Col. Thompson - Robert Anderson Thompson - Born, Pickens District, June 13, 1828, In South Carolina Secession Convention, Married: Valinda Rose Starritt. Captain, Company B, Second South Carolina Rifles, October 31, 1861. Major, July 6, 1862. Lt. Colonel - September 3, 1862. Resigned September 13, 1863, "because an act of Congress exempts me as Commissioner in Equity of Pickens District." Walhalla Lawyer. Died Walhalla, August 7, 1914.

We remained near Martinsburg for a while then camped near Winchester for some time, then near Culpepper, then near Fredericksburg. We had a hard time while in Maryland. We had but little to eat and a great deal of hard marching, the clothes of many men were threadbare, some of them ragged, we were a sorry looking lot. After coming out of Maryland we fared much better, had more to eat and the men soon got to looking much better.

Dean probably refers to the First Texas. Polley who is not always accurate, quotes as follows for the units in the Texas Brigade: The First Texas carried 226 men into the cornfield in front of the Dunker’s Church and lost 182, killed, wounded and captured, a casualty rate of 82%. The Fourth Texas lost 107 of 200, the Fifth Texas lost 86 of 175, the Eighteenth Georgia lost 85 of 176 and the Hampton Legion Infantry lost 55 of 77, including four flag bearers, and their Major, J. Harvey Dingle, about whom it is simply stated, "he died advancing the colors." Never again would so many Americans die in a single day, including the currently topically September 11 attack on New York. The male population of entire towns and counties, as well as fighting units, simply ceased to exist at Sharpsburg. Polley also voices the worn out condition of the Army of Northern Virginia during the Maryland Campaign, echoing the concerns voiced by Lt. Dean.

The Texas Brigade under Hood had performed as always at Second Manassas. In the course of that extraordinary performance, they had captured a number of ambulances that they took as their own, which well they were. Our friend from South Carolina, Shank Evans commandeered this equipment for his brigade. When the gallant Hood protested, Evans pulled his usual, and placed Hood under arrest. All of this left the Texans in a murderous mood for the march to Sharpsburg. Passing Lee on the way to Sharpsburg, each Texan called for the return of Hood before they would fight. (Polley) Lee understood exactly the implication of what was being said , and Polley states,  Lee raised his hat and said as they marched by, “You shall have him”. Thus Hood was returned to command and Evans sent off to make more trouble in other places, which he would, earning his Brigade the unenviable nickname, The Tramp Brigade. This, an insult, they would turn into a compliment by the end of the war. The compliment being paid for in blood, primarily at a place called the Crater. The Texans, as we know, would die almost to a man in the cornfield against Hooker, at least those that had lived through Boonesboro, would die there. Before Sharpsburg was over there would be little need of ambulances for men who were almost all dead, a spade would do just as well. The Hampton Legion Infantry would, like their Texas comrades, die almost to a man in that green corn before the little white church. After Sharpsburg the old Hampton Legion and the two companies left of the old Fourth South Carolina, now known as the Thirteenth Battalion, would be combined and then slowly both units would be forgotten... lost in the midst of time. The reconstituted Hampton Legion Infantry would serve with Jenkins Brigade until after the Knoxville Campaign. Following Knoxville, when Longstreet returned to Virginia, they would head for South Carolina to get mounted and appear again with the Seventh South Carolina Cavalry under Martin Gary. Even today, they are difficult to track. In the end, they would be the hardcore, the few for whom there would be no surrender. Ghost Riders in the Skies of Time... lost and almost forgotten... and so was life and death before the Dunker Church.

Jenkins' men and Lt. Dean missed all of this, being before Burnsides Bridge on the other end of the line. When finally pressed late in the day, A.P. Hill's men appear coming hard from Harper's Ferry and as the Stars and Bars roll out on a faint breeze, Lee breathes a sigh of relief that can still be heard today. It was a thing of moments, for had they not arrived Lee's long line would have rolled up. The next man to sit at the table before Bobby Lee would have been the hero of the Union, and down in the center of the line, down there in the sunken road, the man who was lying in his hat, about to drown in his own blood, would be saved by the bullet hole in that hat. The man with half his face shot away, who would ever after be photographed with that side of his face turned away, the same man who told Lee he would be found there dead or alive come nightfall, that man’s sacrifice would not have mattered. Very few would ever have heard the name John Brown Gordon had Hill not arrived. Ambrose Powell Hill, finally made it on time and helped Toombs hold on till dark on that long forgotten day. For Gus Dean, as it always is for the common soldier, it was measured in a new tin cup and a piece of beef, a good moment in a very bad day. Only later would Gus Dean have time to consider that entire worlds had blown by on the wind, before his very eyes.

Fredericksburg:
Murder by the Northern Lights

By the time of the battle of Fredericksburg, which was the 13th day of December 1862, our army was in much better condition. The fighting was done in the city and a mile and a half below the city. A shell struck Thump Grubbs, a man of Company D, cut his arm off near his shoulder, left it hanging by a little piece of skin. The doctors cut it off near the shoulder joint; He was the only one hurt in the Regiment. The hardest fighting was done in the city. There our men were behind a stone wall on each side and the ground was rolling enough to wash or wear down. The walls were nearly as high above the street as a man’s head so it was a splendid breastworks for our men. The Yankees charged them several times and were driven back every time. A great many of them were killed and a few of our men hurt. I saw the place the next morning; the dead Yankees were still lying there. They were the thickest I ever saw dead men anywhere.

Gen. Burnside commanded the Yankee army and after they had charged our line a number of times, and I believe refused to try it again. Gen. Burnside proposed to lead the men in another attack, but his generals persuaded him not to do it. A part of the Yankee army crossed the river below the city on the pontoon bridges and we could see them from where we were as they marched out across the river bottom towards our men who were on our right. The fighting commenced before the Yankees reached the woods. We could see that many of them were being killed and wounded though they were a good ways from us. At one place there was a gap in our line, some the Yankees what (went) up a hollow and attacked Orr’s Regiment who had stacked their arms, and were scattered about, some of them lying down, not expecting the army to come on them. The Yankees got their guns before the men saw the Yankees. A number of them were killed and wounded, they were forced to retreat but other troops came up and the Yankees were driven back. That night they went back across the river and the fight was over. Gen. Lee expected the big battle the next day. After the battle we remained in camp near Fredericksburg and sometime in February I got a furlough, or rather I was detailed and sent home to recruit, conscript, and arrest deserters, though, I always thought it was a special furlough.

Gen. Burnside, Ambrose Everett Burnside, West Pont 1847 - Ambrose Burnside was, thank goodness, a generation removed from his South Carolina roots. He failed to exploit one of the greatest opportunities ever given a federal commander at the bridge that still bears his name during the Battle of Sharpsburg. His connections prior to the war, combined with his early success during the Union invasion of North Carolina caused Lincoln to force command of the Army of the Potomac on him. At Fredericksburg, he virtually murdered the Union army by repeatedly moving against Longstreet’s extremely strong position. The action resulted in about 13,000 Federal casualties, followed by the ever-remembered Mud March. Making a sham of the democratic ideal, he then went to Ohio where he snatched the copperhead congressman Vallandigham for sedition. He then returned to the east in time to allow his generals to sit around drinking while his troops were slaughtered in the Battle of the Crater, the Confederates having taken exception to being blown up from underground. Following the war he served as a Governor and a United States Senator, like Little Mac, and Ben Butler; Burnside found gilded age politics much more to his taste and proclivities.

At Fredericksburg the wanton looting of the town outraged the Confederates. As stated earlier, Gen. Burnside repeatedly assaulted Longstreet's position as man after man was gunned down by Kershaw’s Brigade standing behind the stonewall and the rest of Longstreet's Corps. From his vantage point, Lt. Dean saw the one opportunity of the day as the Union Army surprised Gen. Maxey Gregg. The sister unit of Moore’s Rifles, Orr’s Rifles, would pay heavily for that error. It is said that General Gregg was hard of hearing and did not fully understand his position, thinking there was a Confederate line in front of his men. Gregg did exactly as Gus says and told his brigade to stack arms. Gregg paid for the error with his life but his men quickly recovered from the shock and the attack. Then they did what they were famous for, drove the Federals like cattle. It was a tiny bright moment for the Union in the midst of one of the Federal armies greatest disasters. That night as the southern army celebrated and the Union wounded bled and suffered in the cold of December, the Northern Lights put on a spectacular display, which was taken as an omen of God’s providence by the Confederates. Lying on the cold earth watching the mystical lights dance above their heads, the Confederates had missed an opportunity to rid themselves of one of the most profoundly spiritual men in the Union army. J.L. Chamberlain watched in wonder as the sky burned in sheets of flame while he lay freezing among the dead and dying. He would survive to close the gate on Lee’s Alabama boys at Gettysburg and then break the Confederate line at Five Forks by ripping a hole in the remnant of the Tramp Brigade. He would then live many productive years beyond the war, recognizing and giving tongue to one of the most remarkable generations ever to live and die in this most remarkable land. He remains, with Ellison Capers of the Confederacy, one of the most deeply spiritual men to come out of the War Between the States. The bravery of the Confederate soldier is often spoken of, and rightfully so, but Gus Dean would tell you, it took a very brave man to climb the hill at Fredericksburg in the face of the best riflemen to ever pick up a firearm... and the Union soldiers did just that, several times.

Chancellorsville and Gettysburg
Drawing a Second and then a Third Ace, Off to Suffolk for Supplies and Guarding Richmond

While I was at home our Brigade came from Fredericksburg to Petersburg and I joined them there. We remained there for a while, then went to Franklin Station on the Black Water River, which is on the railroad between Weldon, N.C. and Norfolk, Va. Sometime after we went there Gen. Longstreet came with a part of his corps. We went on near Suffolk and stayed there for some time. The Yankees were in Suffolk. Though there was no battle fought there was a good deal of picket firing and shelling, most of the time done by the Yankees. Our Brigade camped about two miles from Suffolk. One day the picket firing was so heavy that Gen. Jenkins thought a battle had commenced and started to the front but we met Gen. Longstreet who said it was only picket firing so we turned back. There was a company of Mississippians on picket that day where the firing was so heavy. One of the men got up out of the rifle pit and hollered to the Yankees to shoot and be D-----. The words were hardly out of his mouth when he was killed. Our Regiment had to go down near the picket line and stay there a good deal. We were near the railroad and there was an embankment where the road crossed a branch. It rained and was cold one night and the men built fires. As soon as the fires got to burning good the Yankees opened on us with a number of cannon and you never saw rats get into holes faster that we got to that railroad bank. We were wet and cold and a fire felt mighty good but that embankment felt a heap better while those shells were coming so fast. We were there another day when it was clear and pleasant. I was sitting off seventy-five or eighty yards from the railroad with my shirt off looking for lice. A shell from the Yankee guns struck the rail and knocked off a piece of the iron twelve or fourteen inches long, weighing five or six pounds. It fell so close to me that I could have picked it up where I was sitting. I got up, put on my shirt and went somewhere else. I wasn’t hunting lice then. The lice were pretty bad and worried a fellow a heap but they were not as bad as railroad iron when it came at a fellow like that piece did.

There was a considerable scope of country between Black Water River and the great Dismal Swamp that had not been held by our army or the Yankees. The people who lived there raised a great many hogs and were loyal to our government. While we were near Suffolk men with wagons were sent out all over the country and got all the bacon they could. I heard it said that they got about a hundred and seventy-five thousand pounds and that was why Gen. Longstreet came down there. We then went back and rejoined Gen. Lee’s army near Fredericksburg.

Our Brigade went back to Black Water River and stayed there till about the time Gen. Lee started into Pennsylvania. We went back to Richmond and stayed near Richmond or Petersburg till sometime in September and then went to Tennessee. We had a rather easy time all that summer, not much fighting to do.

Perhaps the luckiest Brigade in the Army of Northern Virginia in the middle of the war, Jenkins' Brigade had fought at Burnside Bridge at Sharpsburg, a good draw on a bad day. Sending Longstreet to Suffolk, Lee attempted to develop his war horse as an offensive fighter and get much needed supplies. While there Jenkins men missed the greatest moment Lee and Jackson ever had and were spared Old Blue Light's death. Upon the return of the Corps to the Army of Northern Virginia, for a variety of political reasons, Jenkins' Brigade found itself in Pickett's Division, and was left to guard Richmond while Lee invaded Pennsylvania. The third day of Gettysburg was a good day to not be with Pickett’s Division. Three Aces is a good draw and Jenkins men would draw a fourth before the hand was called, and the other man at the table called for a new dealer and a new deck.

Chickamaugha
Drawing the Fourth Ace on the Railroad to Hell.

There were six regiments in our Brigade then and we drew new uniforms and were the best dressed Brigade I ever saw in the army. Our Brigade did not reach Tennessee in time for the battle of Chickamauga though the balance of Longstreet’s men who went to Tennessee did and were in the fight. We were in camp near Chattanooga for six weeks or two months and had to go on picket duty pretty often near one of the Yankee batteries that shelled us a good deal and would sometimes throw shells into our camp at night, make us put out our fires, but there were not many hurt by it. That battery would sometimes shoot at our company as we were going on picket, or going from the picket line back to camp, or while on picket. Though the shells would come mighty close to us and make us get into the rifle pits in a hurry, yet they never did hit any of us. Our Company was not in a battle as long as we stayed there.

Longstreet - General James Longstreet - Old Pete - The War Horse - West Point, Class of 1842 - Classmate and friend of U.S. Grant, James Longstreet was the other arm of Robert E. Lee, acting as a perfect balance to Stonewall Jackson. He served the Confederacy well and was vilified after the war for accepting the Republican politics of Grant. Jubal Early first hung the blame for the failure at Gettysburg around his neck, seeing the wisdom in hanging Longstreet, lest someone ask about his actions on the first day of that battle. Perhaps the best days work Lewis Armistead did ever do was not at the stonewall on the third day of Gettysburg but rather the day he hit Jubal Early over the head with a plate in the biscuit rebellion. Longstreet never developed the ability to command independently and that will be no more apparent than in the soon to be campaign in Tennessee. A native of South Carolina, Longstreet was raised just across the Georgia line, by an eccentric uncle, of great genius. The one thing that is certain, is that James Longstreet was greater than his faults, may they lie forever buried with him, we should all hope for the same to be said of us.

In one of many audacious moves, Robert E. Lee detached Longstreet’s entire Corps and sent them west to the never gentle hands of Braxton Bragg and the Army of Tennessee. Following a horrid and long railroad journey, Longstreet’s men reached the end of the line north of Atlanta, just south of the Tennessee State line. Jenkins men waited while Bragg engaged William Rosecrans (West Point, Class of 1842) at Chickamauga. Bragg refused to believe Longstreet as he told him the Union army was broken. The bulk of the Union Army escaped to the relative safety of Chattanooga behind the shield built by the Virginian Thomas who earned his nickname, “The Rock of Chickamauga”, by the determined stand of his soldiers in blue, against Kershaw’s Brigade on the tiny rise known as Snodgrass Hill. Rosecrans was relieved of duty and Longstreet’s old friend Grant took over the boys in blue. Grant established a tenuous line of supply called the Cracker line and Bragg sat on Missionary Ridge and waited, frittering away the greatest chance the Army of Tennessee would ever have.

Wauhatchie, Two old friends go at it...

Our Company and a Company from each Regiment of our Brigade was on picket. One day the Brigade, with the exception of those companies that were on picket, went over Lookout Mountain and that night attacked the Yankees who were stationed in a valley on the west side of the mountain. The object of the attack was to capture a train of wagons Gen. Bragg and Gen. Longstreet thought the enemy had but a small force there and our Brigade could get those wagons. Gen. Jenkins thought the enemy had a strong force there and was opposed to making the attack. He found that he was right and though they captured some of the wagons, they could not bring them back and a number of our men were killed and wounded. Among those killed was Col. Kilpatrick and Augustus Vandiver, a good soldier and a clever man, the father of Jim Vandiver. Sam Stinson was missing and never heard from afterwards, no doubt killed. Those companies on picket were relieved about dark and went over the mountain but the fight was about over when we got there. We crossed a creek, went up on a hill, formed on the right of the road and remained there until balance of the Brigade came back across the creek. It was thought probably the enemy would follow our men as they came back and if they did the Companies that had been on picket were to hold them in check till the Brigade got across the creek. We did not shoot any that night but were near enough to the Yankees for a good many of their bullets to pass overhead and hit the trees and limbs around us.

Col. Kilpatrick, Franklin Whitner Kilpartick, Born, Pendleton District, September 30, 1837,Attended the University of Virginia, Private, First South Carolina, early 1861- Captain, Company E, Fourth South Carolina, June 7, 1861, Captain, Company B, Palmetto Sharpshooters, April 14, 1862, Major, July 22, 1862, Colonel, Palmetto Sharpshooters, August 12, 1862, but declined Colonel, First South Carolina (Hagood’s), January 30, 1863, on application of the regiment’s officers. KIA at Wauhatchie, October 28, 1863 Buried Taylor Cemetery, Anderson South Carolina. (Krick Lee’s Colonels)

Augustus Vandiver, Vandiver, A.W., Company F, Second Rifles, Second Lieutenant (B) Vandiver Augustus W., Company F, Second S.C. Rifles, Company F, 10/28/63, Lookout Valley, KIA, 10/19/63 (K)

Sam Stinson - Sam Stinson is not listed in any standard source of reference. The Combined Service Records were not searched.

Following the battle at Chickamauga and Hood’s wound, an opening occurred in Longstreet’s Corps for a Division Commander. Evander Law had performed with great distinction at Chickamauga, as he had at Gettysburg, and had every reason to believe he would get the promotion to division command. The maneuvering for this position continued as before, and the two senior brigade commanders, Law and Micah Jenkins were both ambitious and intelligent men. Graduates of the S.C. Carolina Military Academy, they had entered into the establishment of the Kings Mountain Military Academy with friend Asbury Cowart before the war. Law had broken with the other two and returned to his home state to establish a school there. These “friends” knew each other well and Longstreet had assisted the senior of the two, Jenkins, in positioning himself in the correct division for promotion to division command. When Longstreet crossed the mountain to Tennessee, Pickett’s Division was absent, still recovering from the action at Gettysburg, and Jenkins was placed under the gallant Hood, serving beside and senior to Evander Law. Jenkins had been given the assignment of acting division commander and brigade command passed to John Bratton following Chickamauga, all of which was a bucket of salt in the wounds of his old friend Law. This not being enough of an internal political problem, the habitual plotting in the Army of Tennessee found an additional conspirator in the ambitious James Longsteet and in due course the now crippled Hood. Longstreet then recommended Jenkins as Hood’s replacement to the war department. Hood then sent a letter recommending both men to G.W.C. Lee, Robert E. Lee’s son. Against this volatile political backdrop, Braxton Bragg attempted to lay siege to the city of Chattanooga and then Evander Law lost Brown’s Ferry, allowing Grant to open his famous Cracker line. Law left the Ferry to visit Hood (probably to advance his cause) and a Federal force drifted down from the city and took the vital crossing. Thus Evander Law and Micah Jenkins were embarrassed at a critical moment in the career of both. Only after the siege was broken did Bragg believe the Federals would try such an undertaking. So with everyone embarrassed for all the wrong reasons and acting on the worst motives it was undertaken to restore the siege by an attack to recover the lost ferry. The Federals established a pontoon bridge and sent Fightin Joe Hooker across to push toward Wauhatchie. Hooker left his rear guard under John W. Geary at Wauhatchie where two railroads joined. Longstreet saw the opportunity and gave the assignment to Jenkins to attack and destroy Hooker’s rear guard. Bratton was to attack Geary and Law was to keep Hooker's main force at Brown’s Ferry from relieving Geary at Wauhatchie. All of this to be done in a night assault. The assault occurred, but not as planned. Law failed to support Bratton, and mistakes were made, but the question of intent entered the argument. Perhaps most damaging of all was Law’s supposed statement repeated by Longstreet on the authority of a staff officer. Law was supposed to have said that, "He could not be expected to furnish silver spurs for Jenkins new uniform as a major general." The short-term effect was horrid, Bratton’s men had been horribly mauled in the night attack and the effect on the moral of the common soldier can be but little imagined. Unnoticed was the fact that Grant had once again achieved success and would shortly turn from hunted to hunter, all because of the ambition of these three men. The new player was at the table and nobody seemed to notice, being much too intent on internal self-destruction. There is nothing new under the sun. Men like Gus Dean, froze and starved for lofty ideals while ambition replaced the common good and sadly this was only the beginning.

Dying by the hand of ambition, starving in the land of the Unionist

We remained near Chattanooga till the latter part of November, then went up to Knoxville, Tenn. After crossing the Tennessee River we struck the Yankees. We had a good deal of fighting to do then until we got near Knoxville though no real battle. One day our Brigade was in front, we marched very fast and we would overtake the Yankees and attack their rear so vigorously that they would stop and form their lines for a battle. Then our Brigade would have to stop and wait until the balance of our army was brought up and the lines formed for general engagement. While Gen. Longstreet was doing that the Yankees would leave a few men there, the balance going on as fast as they could till we overtook them again and the same thing over again. Though we had no battle that day, no general engagement, yet our Brigade had several pretty hard skirmishes and a number were killed and wounded. At one time we went into a field in line of battle and could see the Yankees away over at the other side of the field. They opened on us with artillery. We could see the smoke of the cannon when they fired and knew the shells were coming and Oh, My, how it made a fellow cringe. Where was that shell going to hit? Was I the fellow it was going to hit? If we had been near enough to return the fire it would not have been so bad but while it was in easy range for artillery it was rather far for long arms. We went on till we got down near a house, a fine dwelling with a good many large oak trees around it. Our Regiment was on the right of the road. A shell struck up the road and I saw an oilcloth fly up eight or ten feet high. Two Lieutenants were killed in the same company of another regiment. Another Regiment on our right stopped near another road with a fence on each side of it. The men took down the rails and made a breastwork of them. A shell struck the rails and six men were killed or wounded.

It was then late and darkness stopped the fight; next morning the Yankees were gone. We went on to Knoxville, surrounded the city and remained there until after the battle of Missionary Ridge near Chattanooga. Our men were defeated there, then a part of the Yankee army from Chattanooga came up in our rear and we had to leave Knoxville. After that the Yankees held the railroad between us and Chattanooga and we could not get any supplies from that direction and the railroad had been torn up towards Virginia so we were dependent on what we could get around the country. Sometimes our men held it and sometimes the Yankees held it. It was pretty well eaten out, there was not much to get. Nearly all the people who lived there were Unionists and had no love for Southern soldiers, and were not disposed to help us any, so for while we had but little to eat. Some days we got a pound of flour to man, some days a pound for two men. Sometimes a pound for three days and some days none at all. The meat we got was beef or mutton so poor that it was not fit to eat. Some of the cattle killed for beef was so poor that while they were driven along as we marched, (they) would give up and fall down. They were killed and meat issued to us. The sheep were as poor as the cattle. Fortunately for us there was a great deal of corn in the field. We parched and ate a heap of it. One day there were two ears issued to each man most the time we got it for ourselves. The mutton was so poor that I took a quarter of it and threw it against a tree and it stuck there, yet after boiling it and baking it until it was brown it ate very well.

To add to our other troubles the men were badly clothed and many of them almost barefooted. Many of them wore moccasins made of a piece of cow skin tied around their feet. That was better than being entirely barefooted yet moccasins were a poor substitute for shoes and that was one of the coldest winters I ever saw in my life.

We went into camp near Morristown Christmas Eve and soon after built cabins for winter quarters. We stayed there till the latter part of February but we had to go on picket a good many times. Our Regiment charged the Yankees once when they were in the woods above a field on a very high hill. As we were crossing a fence on the lower side of the field they commenced firing at us. One of the men of our Company was shot through the lungs while astride the fence. He gripped his gun in his hands and the fence with his legs and he could not get off the fence or turn his gun lose. The Ambulance Corps had to pull his hands open and take him off the fence. We went on into the woods above the field, the Yankees ran and we followed them for some distance. I tried the hardest there to kill a Yankee that I ever did. I would run to get ahead of the company and put my gun up by the side of a tree and take sight like I was shooting a squirrel. When the fight was over Captain Brown of Company L said, Dean, do you think you killed anybody? I said, I don’t know, sir, I didn’t see anybody fall when I shot.

While we were charging the Yankees and going at a double quick, Emory, a private who belonged to Company L, got ten or fifteen feet behind his company and Capt. Brown ran up to him and said “SHOOT, Emory, SHOOT”. He couldn’t shoot toward the enemy for fear of shooting his own men in front of him. He pointed his gun up and shot straight up into the air. The men teased him a great deal about elevating his gun and killing Gen. Burnside seven miles in the rear.

There was a good deal of skirmishing done that day. Our men would charge the Yankees and run them back and they would run our men back. One time as our men came falling back, one Gen. Longstreet’s couriers rode out in front of our men and pulled off his hat and waved it around his head and hollered to encourage our fellows. Just as he hollered a ball went into his mouth and out at the back of his head. That ended the life of a good soldier.

After the fight we went back two or three miles towards our winter quarters and camped on a high hill in woods that had been burned off. We had nothing to make fires with but little green saplings. It was very cold and snowed that night. I had a tent that I carried that three could sleep under. During the night my shoes and hat got pushed out from under the tent and next morning were full of snow. What a nice time I had scraping the snow out of my shoes and hat and starting a fire of green saplings, it was anything but pleasant. Though the winter was cold and we had but little to eat, I had splendid health and got along pretty well. My shoes were sent to me from home so I did not lack for shoes like many others did. One day we were on march all day and it was very cold ground frozen hard. There was one man in our Regiment that was barefooted, did not have anything on his feet. He would not stay in ranks but walked in paths or at the side of the road. He was a corporal and was court-martialed and reduced in rank because he would not march in ranks.

When we left Knoxville we started about an hour after dark and marched all night and all next day. When we got two or three miles from Knoxville we crossed a creek and had to wade it. It was ten or twelve feet wide, rocky and rough and we had orders for the men not to pull off their shoes. Though it was pretty dark I could see that it was a rough ford and I was afraid to run across the creek so as not to get my shoes full of water. So I stepped out to the side of the road and sat down to pull off my shoes even if it was against orders. When I sat down I saw a foot log just below the road and started towards it but an officer turned his horse around in front of me and said, “Halt sir, you cannot cross here” but I walked on and thought “Old fellow, you will see whether I will cross or not”. Before he could turn his horse around I was out of reach of his sword, so he could not hit me and I was not afraid of his shooting me with a pistol and he could not report me for he did not know who I was, so I got across the creek dry shod.

I heard a good deal of cursing that night because the men had to wade the creek and get their shoes full of water and had to march on all night and all the next day. After leaving Knoxville we went up towards Morristown and moved about from place to place. The weather was very cold. We went in to camp near Morristown on the 24th day of December, 1863, and then went up to Bulls Gap the latter part of February, camped there a while, and then near Bristol. While in Bristol one day I saw my brother Wad and Can Cox driving a goose down the river to get it out of sight of the owner’s house. I went down there and tried to get them to let that goose alone. (Though I wanted it as bad as they did) but they would not do it. They caught the goose and gave it to me to put under my raincoat. We walked right by the owner’s house, went on to camp, killed it, cooked and ate it.

After staying near Bristol awhile we went back into Virginia again. That felt a good deal like going home. While in Tennessee the band would often play, “Carry Me Back to Old Virginny” and then the boys would set up such a yell that it would be impossible to hear what the band was playing at all. The boys were very anxious to go back to Virginia.

Following the failure at Wauhatchie, Bragg divided his army and sent Longstreet to lay siege to Knoxville, then under the command of our old friend Burnside. Following a difficult march, and running gun battle, well described and suffered by Lt. Dean, Longstreet lay siege to Knoxville, and moved on the city itself. Once again Law failed to support Bratton as both McLaws and Jenkins failed to preform, bringing about the defeat of Longstreet by Burnside of all people. This defeat was suffered and is mentioned by Lt. Dean. This set the stage for Longstreet’s movement to Morristown east of Knoxville and the long winter in a region that was not only cut off from railroad support but also was the home of Andrew Johnson the great Unionist who would shortly be Lincoln’s Vice President. Sam Grant did not wait long to announce to Bragg the truth about who was in fact under siege back at Chickamauga. In one of the worst defeats of a Confederate Army, Grant and his buddy Sherman ran the Army of Tennessee back to Georgia. As Lt. Dean states, this allowed Grant to threaten Longstreet as he attempted to take Knoxville, making the actions of Evander Law even more despicable. Longstreet then did as he had done in Suffolk and settled into a long period of relative inactivity in East Tennessee, the land of no supply. The shoe situation was so bad that the men wrapped their feet in green cowhide and let it cure to form a shoe, while fighting in snow and ice. At least one owner of these “green” cowhide shoes said the biggest problem was the fragrance, till they cured out.

As the winter wore on, the in fighting continued. Laws was charged and the brew haw continued within Longstreet’s Corps. General Lafayette McLaws (West Point, Class of 1842) serving with Longstreet found himself arrested for the action at Ft. Sanders in front of Knoxville. President Davis would dismiss the charges but not before much damage was done. Having nothing better to do on the long cold winter nights, Longstreet reversed his position concerning Jenkins to Richmond. In the end, Law, was brought up on formal charges with McLaws. Law eventually resigned and returned to a cavalry command. The only positive result of all of this was that Hood was left with Bragg, where he would eventually emerge as the most ambitious of the them all, being given the army command everyone so desired. Hood then promptly destroyed that army at Franklin and Nashville. Perhaps the only thing that was proven during that long cold winter was that Longstreet would not attack, and could not control those who served under him.

No doubt the men did listen to "Carry Me Back to old Virgiiny" with a great deal of longing. Longing for days that had been, and would never be again. Not only was strife and ambition tearing the heart out of Longstreet's Corps, Old Pete's old friend from the Point was about to sit down to try his hand at poker with Robert E. Lee. The New Dealer was in play and Sam Grant would be waiting for them all, with a new deck of cards and a new game, when they again crossed the mountain. They would run to the fore in the Wilderness and push him back and then stare blankly when he did what had never been done before. He was whipped, but he didn't pull out and regroup. Sam Grant, with a cigar grimly clenched between his teeth, turned and barely flinched. Then he hit them again and was stopped again, at Spotsylvania, while they died and killed Grant's men with fierce abandon in the Mule Shoe. Then on and on, at place after place, again and again, the grim little man in the dirty uniform pounded the gentry to its knees. Grant’s Overland Campaign was underway and the meat grinder had arrived. Very shortly Gus Dean, and all of those like him, discovered exactly who was to be the corn to be ground in this mill, and exactly what Sam Grant meant when he said, "If it takes all summer..." The man with the midnight courage and a head made of rock had arrived to play out the game.

Into The Wilderness:
A Matter of Inches, A New Dealer and a New Deck

After going to Virginia we camped near Gordonsville, till the fifth of May. The day the fighting commenced at the Wilderness we left camp on the evening of the fifth and marched till night, had orders to be ready to move out the next day at three o’clock. We started at that time and marched at a fast walk till daylight. As soon that morning as it got light enough to see the enemy attacked our men again with such overwhelming force that our men were forced to fall back. They were driven back the evening before, too. We could hear the firing directly after daylight though we were a long way from the battlefield. We had to march faster and faster till we were going at a double quick, which is twice as fast as a fast walk. The further we went the faster we had to run and still the officers were doing all they could to get us to go faster. Officers and Couriers were riding back and forth along the road like they were running horse races and we could hear the order almost constantly “Close Up, close up men, close up men” for miles. We had to cross a creek that was twelve or fourteen feet wide and shoe mouth deep. There were five or six officers there on horses. I suppose they thought we would not want to wade the creek or would want to pull off our shoes but we paid as little attention to it as if it were a pile of white sand. I ran a little faster and I don’t know till this day whether I got any water in my shoes or not. We had to go for miles, as fast as we could and so far as I recollect I did not feel tired. We commenced meeting the wounded by the time we got within a mile and a half of the battlefield. The men of our command commenced asking the question “how is the fight going?” every minute. I did not ask the question for I know by the way that we were being rushed forward that things were becoming desperate and if our men had been driving back the enemy we would have heard it right away. The way those wounded men talked was enough to make us turn back without ever reaching the battlefield. They said, “The enemy is driving us back and we are cut all to pieces” and such as that. Those who have never had such an experience can have but little idea of how that made us feel. We knew that the enemy had a much larger army than we had and had already defeated most of our army. There were not more than eight or ten thousand of Longstreet’s Command and we would have to meet that large army of the enemy who were exulting at the defeat of our army. We knew that we had to do some desperate fighting to save the day. We went right on though the enemy had been driving our men back but when our two divisions got there they changed things very quickly. The Texas Brigade was ordered out to the right of the Brigade and our Brigade was ordered out to the rear of them. Gen. Jenkins came to our Regiment and talked to us. He said “Gen. Lee said those men must be driven back from here”. Gen. Jenkins said, “I want to hear a good report from these rifles and I will not ask you to go anywhere but where I will go right with you. My line of battle must not fire at the enemy’s line of skirmishers. My line of skirmishers must drive back the enemy’s line of skirmishers and my line of battle must drive back to of the enemy’s lines of battle”.

This is the moment when Douglas S. Freeman, said of Wilcox Division (of which McGowan’s Brigade was a part), "They didn’t run fast and didn’t run far, but they did run." It is also the famous Lee to the rear moment of the Texas Brigade. In a war that was always high drama, this was perhaps the most dramatic moment of all. Freeman's account of the Texans moving Lee to the rear is without peer, but for raw color few accounts are better than Frank Mixon's in Reminiscences of a Private, Chapter VIII.

The Texas Brigade met the enemy right away. The bushes were so thick that they could not see each other till they got very close together. The Texans drove the Yankees back in a hurry. We could see right where each line stood when they fired at each other. There was a line of dead men where they stood. The dead lay the thickest there I ever saw anywhere except in Fredericksburg, where the Yankees charged our men so often behind a stone wall. Our Brigade kept close after the Texans but we were halted once and ordered to lie down. We had been there only a short while when Polk Cox said, “ Gus, why don’t you go out in front and get a haversack?” I went out there and got two but the balls were coming so fast that I started back running, then saw Milton Richison, a man that belonged to our company. He was eight or ten steps before me. A ball passed near my head, hit him in the head, he jumped very high and was killed so quickly I suppose he hardly felt it.

The Death of Jenkins and Longstreet Down, Grinding fine...

A few minutes after we were ordered forward but turned and went out into the road. Our men were driving the Yankees back so fast. Gen. Longstreet was at the front of our Regiment with his staff, Gen. Jenkins with his staff. Some Virginians mistook us for Yankees, fired into us and killed Gen. Jenkins. His horse ran about twenty steps and Gen. Jenkins fell off. Gen. Longstreet was wounded badly. He turned, rode back and just as he got to the rear of our Regiment he fell from his horse but Cannon Cox, a man that belonged to our company and was on the Ambulance Corps, caught him before he got to the ground. Gen. Lee came right up to where we were in a few minutes and asked “Who commands here?” Colonel Bowen said, I command this Regiment, General, but I am not the Senior Colonel of the Brigade. Gen. Lee said “Send a courier for him”. And when Col. Bratton came, Gen. Lee said, “Colonel, take your men back on the right of the road again, I have no support there”. We went back to the right. The fighting all stopped then for two hours or more. Our men were driving the Yankees back very fast till Gen. Jenkins was killed and Gen. Longstreet wounded. If it had not been for that the result of that battle would have been very different from what it was. While the battle was stopped the Yankees had time to reform their lines, get their men in good shape and make breastworks so that when we attacked them later in the day, they were ready for us. Though they were driven out of some of the breastworks yet that did not amount to much. A part of our Brigade ran the Yankees out of their breastworks and a part did not. Our Regiment and the Palmetto Sharpshooters did not. We got very close to the Yankees but could not see them. We were at a little branch and I was shooting when Capt. Philpot, of Company H, was wounded a few steps from me and asked me to stop shooting. He was down and badly wounded. I suppose he thought if we stopped shooting the Yankees would too. There was a large dead tree behind me, a grape shot from a Yankee gun struck in a foot or two of me and went through the side of the tree. Col. Bowen was standing behind it and I though, “Poor fellow, you are gone”. I thought he was killed but he stepped out from behind the tree, brushed the bark and rotten wood off his clothes and walked off down the line just as if there was no danger at all, yet the balls were coming like hail. The shot cut a part of his coat tail off, almost as straight as if it had been cut with a pair of scissors. The firing ceased directly, we and the Yankees stopped. We remained there for a while and then went back up the hill and remained there that night and the next day, so Grant had a chance to attack us again if he wished, but he concluded that there was a better way to Richmond than that.

And now a few words about the number of men that Grant had and the number of Lee’s Army. Grant’s available forces, present for duty, May the 1st, 1864, was by the official statement of the Federal Secretary of war, one hundred and forty-one thousand, one hundred and sixty-six men. During the month of May reinforcements to repair the losses of the Army of the Potomac, as the Yankee Army was called, constantly arrived, making the number of Grant’s force nearly or quite two hundred thousand men. Lee had present for duty at the same time, as the roll of the army will show, fifty-two thousand, six hundred and twenty-six. Gen. Pickett and Gen. Breckenridge brought him afterwards probably ten thousand men. With about sixty-two thousand troops Lee fought from the Rapidan River to Petersburg repulsing the assault of nearly or quite two hundred thousand.

As stated above, we remained there all next day, soon after dark we left there and after going a mile and a half or two miles there was a detail sent back to get the baggage that was on the battlefield, and I was one of that detail. We had to carry the extra baggage and overtake our Regiment. We had to march all night and the woods had just been burned off, there were dead trees, stumps and logs still burning making it very smoky. There was a creek to cross, a bad crossing. The men would crowd up, those in the rear would have to go a few steps at a time and stop, for an hour and half or two hours. I got so tired and wanted to sit down, but the place where it had been burned over was so black that I didn’t want to sit down in it. After crossing the creek we marched very fast to close up and by that time it was daylight.

After the battle of the Wilderness when Grant started to Richmond he tried to go around us and beat us to Richmond, but when he got to Spotsylvania he found a part of our army in front of him. There was a big battle there. Grant could not go on that way, so he tried going around us again, but when he got to Hanover junction he found us in front of him again. He concluded that was not a good place for a fight so he tried another route to Richmond.

By the time he got down in front of Richmond he had lost about sixty thousand men, about as many as Gen. Lee had, and Gen. Lee received but few reinforcements. Though Grant received so many and his army kept so large, it took him nearly a year to overpower us. After both armies got down in front of Richmond there was more or less fighting somewhere along the line almost every day till the next winter.

Near the Mule Shoe at Spotsylvania, Hard Fighting Indeed...

Our command was in the Battle of Spotsylvania. We were on the left and in the breastworks and the enemy attacked us but it didn’t amount to much. There was a field in our front and we could see the Yankees when they were a way over on a hill. They came down into a hollow so we could see them again till they came up to within about a hundred yards of us. Not many of them did that, most of them stopped before they got to where we could see them again. The Yankees attacked our men on the right that morning as soon as it got light enough to see. It was foggy and they got close to our picket before our pickets could see them. Many of our men and the Yankees fought there all day, the Yanks on one side of the breastworks and our men on the other. There was a live oak tree twelve or fourteen inches in diameter that was shot down with minie balls and fell on some of our men. James Moore was captain of A Company, was wounded and fell, another man was either killed or badly wounded, fell across him and the tree fell on them, they had to lie there the rest of the day and all night.

The live oak tree was in the Mule Shoe at Spotsylvania, near McGowan’s Brigade, a section of it may be seen in the Smithsonian, if it is still on display.

It was an easy matter for our Brigade to whip the Yankees that attacked us. Some of our men went out in front of the breastworks and captured some the Yankees that were in front. In the evening we had to go back to where our men and the Yankees were fighting all day though we did not have to go into the breastworks but were a short distance in the rear of where the fighting was done and had to stay there all night. There were sixteen of our cannon between us and the breastworks and the Yankees kept shooting all night to keep our men from bringing those cannon away. The balls were passing over or hitting about us all night, some of our Regiment were wounded, Lt. Col. Donald and some others, a fellow named Kelly who made a mighty fuss. I think he was afraid he would be left there and the Yankees would get him. Someone said, “Where are you wounded, Kelly?’ He said, “Right in the behind”. I don’t know what became of him.

Lt. Col. Donald - David Lewis Donald - Born Donalds, South Carolina, January 25, 1825. Lt Palmetto Regiment, Mexican War. Lieutenant, Company F, Second South Carolina Rifles, October 20, 1861. Captain, December 19, 1861. Lt. Colonel, January 22, 1862, Wounded in the Wilderness, Wounded in thigh, August 14, 1864. Appomattox, Died April 25, 1872. Listed as David L. Donald, Lieutenant, Company E, Palmetto Regiment, Mexican War, Enlisted as Private, Also spelled Donnald. See South Carolina in the Mexican War, Meyer, J.A.

It rained all night, was cold and where I lay the ground was bare as a yard. I could feel the water running under me, and men getting wounded. When I thought it was about eleven o’clock I could see that it looked light in the east and wondered what in the world it was that looked that way. I thought I had slept very little but I had been asleep all night.

There were four cannon where we were and some of our men brought horses and carried them back but the sixteen cannon that were nearer the breastworks were left there and the Yankees got them. During the night Gen. Lee established another line. The one that our men occupied the day before where there was so much fighting was crooked. The crook was called the horseshoe and that was the part of the line the Yankees took. Gen. Lee said it was his fault, he made the mistake in establishing the line. Our men were ordered back the next morning to the new line but there was no more fighting there, as Grant thought there was a better way to Richmond.

Petersburg  Prelude to a war 75 years away

From the time the Campaign opened at the Wilderness until Grant got down in front of Richmond he lost about sixty thousand men, about as many as Lee had. But Grant received so many reinforcements that his army was kept up while our army became less and less all the time, till it was worn down to a frazzle. After we got down in front of Richmond we had a line of breastworks from the north of Richmond to the south of Petersburg. The whole line was thirty miles long. Our Brigade was in the breastworks in front of Petersburg for about two months. Our line and the enemy’s line was so close together that there were no pickets kept out in front of the line most of the time, sometimes a few men out in front of the breastworks, just one in a place, and no-one in sight of him. When I had to go out I would get so sleepy I was miserable. I would wish sometimes that a dog or a rabbit would come along, make a fuss, make me think the Yankees were coming and scare me so I wouldn’t be so sleepy.

It was in June and July that we were there and during the day two men of each company had to be up and shooting all the time. The Yankees were shooting too (sharp-shooting), the Yankees had mortars, cannon about two feet long that threw a shell way up in the air. They would come right down into our breastworks sometimes. The shells did not kill very many, not so many as were killed by the sharpshooters. We slept very little in daytime and at night half of us had to sit up with our guns in our hands so that if the Yankees attacked us we would be ready for them, one-half of us one half of the night, the other half the other half of the night. Sometimes only a third of the men would be kept up at a time but most of the time half of us had to be up. About once a week we were relieved and went back about a mile from the breastworks, stayed there twenty-four hours so we could get one night’s sleep and wash our clothes.


Back across the James and the Crater

We were on the line in front of Petersburg where the Yankees undermined our breastworks and blew them up, but we had come back to the north side of the James River, or in front of Richmond, before that was done. We remained there most of the time till Richmond was evacuated. The first time we went into the breastworks in front of Petersburg we stayed only five or six days. During that time there were seventy-five or eighty men killed or wounded. There was only one man in our company killed while we were there, he was standing up and exposed himself unnecessarily.

The Battle of the Crater involved Evan’s South Carolina Brigade, other S.C. Units were moved shortly before the explosion, Jenkins old Brigade, now Bratton’s had been at ground zero, another narrow escape for the men of those units. For a great account of the Crater and the role of artillery, See Southern Bronze, Chapter Fourteen, by Dedmondt. Also see Hagood and Baldwin, The Struck Eagle, page 316.

James Morris and James Whitt were both killed at Petersburg; Morris was killed on August 8, 1864 and is probably the man Dean is speaking of.

After going back to the line in front of Richmond we were stationed there for some time, ten or twelve miles from Richmond and about two miles north of the James River. On the sixteenth or seventeenth of August the Yankees attacked us and we had to move about half a mile through a field. A young fellow (a courier for the General) came to our Regiment with a dispatch or order, the Yankees were shooting and the balls coming a little more than we fancied. That courier started back toward the Yankees, riding fast. His horse did something he did not like, he cursed it, did not go a hundred yards till he was killed. He was small, looked like a boy sixteen or seventeen years old.

We went to the breastworks near the east side of the field, the Yankees were over on the hill in front of us, were shooting with cannon and small arms. A gunboat on the James River was shooting at us too and we could see it plainly. We could see the smoke when the gun was firing. One of the shells from the gunboat struck the breastworks about ten steps from me and it almost covered our men in dirt but did not hurt them. A number of those shells passed over or fell near us but did not hit anyone. They were very large and made a large hole in the ground where they struck.