Part 2 Recollections of Army Life During the Civil War

Fighting among the bones of friends...

The Yankees did not attack our part of the line in the morning, but did about a mile above where we were. They massed their troops in a deep hollow just in front of our line and made a rush on our men, drove them out. Our Regiment and another Regiment in our Brigade had to go up there and drive them out. For most of the way there was a road running parallel with the breastworks and not far from them. Our men and the Yankees were fighting the balls were coming pretty thick a part of the way. Just before we got to where our Regiment was to charge the Yankees we passed Gen. Gregg who was in command that day. He asked, “What Regiment is this?” Lewis Campbell said, “Second South Carolina Rifles”. Gen. Gregg said, “Ah, that is a good Regiment. I know you will do” I was usually glad to hear our Regiment praised but I knew what that meant, that is- there was some fighting to be done and we must do it. We went a little farther and charged the Yankees. Our men had cut the bushes for thirty or forty yards in the rear of their trenches. Col. R.R. Bowen in front of us got in sight of the Yankees first. He said, “Yonder they are, boys- Charge them”. The Yankees fired as quick as he said that and before we got through the bushes threw down their guns, jumped over the breastworks and ran down a steep hill out of sight so quickly we didn’t see many of them. We were not more than fifty or sixty yards from them when they shot at us. A well-directed volley should have killed or wounded a great many but there was not a man in our regiment hurt.

General Gregg is General John Gregg of The Texas Brigade of Fields Division. He is the man made famous at the head of Longsteet's Corp as they come up the Plank road into the Wilderness. He would be killed on the Charles City Road on October 7, 1864, in the action at Darbytown Road. (Generals in Gray) The attack and counterattack of August 16th are mentioned by Cowart and Baldwin. General Lee was in the field that day, Baldwin cites an exchange between Lee and Colonel Cowart to rally the men right before the attack, The Struck Eagle, page 319. The two regiments called for by Fields to heal the breech in his line were The Second S.C. Rifles and Cowart’s Fifth South Carolina Infantry. Cowart, as an intimate of Jenkins was fairly well known to Lee, See The South Carolinians by Cowart.

For a better look at General Gregg and a nice love story follow this link.

Lewis Campbell - Lewis E. Campbell, Company F, Second S.C. Rifles, Corporal (B)

It was a hot day and the Yankees pulled off their haversacks, were in too much of a hurry to think of haversacks when they left for safer quarters. I was on the first of our Regiment getting into the breastworks so I go two haversacks and both were full. Our rations were pretty short at that time and I was very glad to get them. One of them had a fork in it and I have it here now. I looked into one the sacks and found a tin can in it. I opened the can and found something white in it. I thought was salt. I gave the haversack to John Humphreys, afterwards found out it was sugar and was certainly sorry I gave that one away.

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

Not long after that our Brigade was in another battle at Fort Harrison. The Yankees had driven our men, old men and boys, out of it and there was an attempt made to recapture it but it was a failure. Our Company was on picket that day, the only Company from the Brigade on picket; we were in cabins that were built for winter quarters by some of our army, and near the enemy. Gen. Lee, Gen. R.H. Anderson, who was in command of Longstreet’s Corps, Major General Alexander, who commanded artillery, Major Gen. Fields, who commanded our Division, Major General Hoke, Brigadier General Colquitt of Georgia and one or two others came into the cabin where I was and held a council of war. I heard the whole plan of battle. The Artillery and two Brigades of our division, ours and another one, and two Brigades of Hoke’s division, were to do the fighting. The Artillery was to fire very rapidly for thirty minutes and then elevate their guns and throw shells over in the rear of the enemy’s lines to demoralize any reinforcements that might come up. Gen. Hoke was to get his men as close to the enemy’s line as he could without his men being seen and then to lie down, wait till Gen. Field’s two Brigades advance, then all to make the attack at the same time. But Gen. Fields ordered his men forward in about fifteen minutes after the Artillery commenced firing. The Yankees concentrated their fire on Field’s two Brigades and they were driven back. Some of our Regiment got up to the ditch in front of the fort but could not cross it. At the expiration of the thirty minutes and after Field’s men were driven back, Gen. Hoke ordered his men forward and they were repulsed too. Fields ordered his men to make a second attack but were repulsed again. When Fields men were fighting a great many balls shot by the enemy hit the cabins our Company was in. I told the men to lie down behind the cabins to protect themselves. When our Regiment advanced on the enemy they passed near us and when they fell back the first time, David Campbell and George Campbell of our company went with them. When they made the second attack they went too. David was killed and George had a hole about six inches long shot in the breast of his coat but he was not hurt.

Fort Harrison is known as Chafin’s Farm, Laurel Hill and New Market Heights. The fortification was captured in a series of actions on September 28 and 29. Dean refers to the counterattack by Lee on the 30th. See Lee’s Lieutenant’s Vol. III, page 590 Hoke and Field’s Divisions were both involved in the assault. Hoke’s men are generally charged with the failure to work within the framework of the plan. However, Tige Anderson's Georgia boys from Field's Division are also mentioned. (Page 591). This seems to contradict what we are told by Dean. Lee called on Hoke to assault the position two additional times and Freeman observes that it wrecked some of Hoke’s Regiments. General Colquitt, the least known of the mentioned generals was a Brigade Commander from Georgia. Nether of the Campbell boys appear to have survived the war: Campbell, David M. (B) Campbell, E. M. - KIA Ft. Harrison Virginia 9/30/64 (K)Killed at Fort Harrison (U) and Campbell, George T. (B) Died of Disease in Richmond (U)

General Lee - Robert E. Lee, Virginia - West Point, Class of 1829 - General - Commander of the Army of Northern Virginia

General R.H. Anderson - Richard Heron (Herron) Anderson, South Carolina - West Point, Class of 1842 - Lt. General - Replaced Longstreet as a Corps Commander following Longstreet's wound in the Wilderness. Brigade Commander in Longstreet's Corp and Division Commander. Perhaps his worst moment is when following Saylor's Creek, he reports to Lee. Lee tells him to go home, as he has no troops for him to command. Anderson lived on the edge of poverty following the war near Beaufort, S.C.

General Porter Alexander - General Edward Porter Alexander, Georgia - West Point, Class of 1857 - Brigadier General - Served as Chief of Artillery in Longstreet's Corps and afterward in the same post for the Army of Northern Virginia. He went with Longstreet to Chickamauga. Following the war his career was as distinguished, as Anderson's was difficult. Professor of Engineering, Railroad President, Alexander was as always, a leader of quite power. His book, Military Memoirs of a Confederate, is a classic study of command in the Army of Northern Virginia.

General Field - Charles William Field, Kentucky - West Point, Class of 1849 - Major General -Served as a Brigade Commander and was terribly wounded at Second Manassas. Commanded Hood's old division with distinction in the latter days of the war. Following the war he found his way to the service of the Khedive of Egypt, was doorkeeper of the United States House of Representatives, and other unique occupations.

General Hoke - Robert Frederick Hoke, North Carolina - Graduate of the Kentucky Military Institute - Major General - Having served well with General Lee, Hoke finished the war in the command of General J.E. Johnston in North Carolina. Hoke is probably best known for his farewell message to his troops.

General Colquitt - Alfred Holt Colquitt, Georgia - Graduate of Princeton, Class of 1844, Brigadier General - Was in command at the Confederate victory at Olustee, Florida. Returned to serve with the Army of Northern Virginia. Served as both Governor and Senator from Georgia following the war.

When Hoke’s men attacked the Yankees I could stand up and see them and the balls shot by the Yankees, but the Yankees did not come towards us. Gen. Colquitt’s Brigade of Georgians attacked the enemy who were in a trench, not the fort and could go into the breastworks where the Yankees were as they had sorry breastworks. Most of them stopped, lay down in the broom straw when they got within twenty-five or thirty yards of the Yankee lines. A number of them went right on into the Yankee lines and were taken prisoners. The Yankees kept shooting into the broom sage where our men were lying; how I did hate to see so many of our men captured and killed. The fight at Fort Harrison was sometime in September 1864. We remained on the line near there for some time afterwards and there was more or less fighting almost every day somewhere along the line.

Many of the defenses around Ft. Harrison were thrown up in haste after its capture by the Union forces. Here we see Dean discussing the issues concerning the Georgia men in the assault.

The next battle that our Brigade was in was on the 7th of October and know as the battle of Darby Town. We marched a good part of the night before and next morning about sunup we formed in line at the edge of a field, and a breastworks out in the field that we had made there two years before. The Yankees were in and we had to drive them out. They commenced shooting at us as soon as they saw us. A ball struck John Boleman on the knee and went through it. It made a noise when it struck his knee almost like a board that was hit with a hammer. Though John Boleman was badly hurt he made but little noise. John Greason, another man of our Company, ran back through the woods, limping badly and groaning like he was hurt terrible though he was not hit at all. It is an old saying that it is the hit dog that hollers, but it was the other dog that time. We didn’t see any more of Greason that day. He was a coward and would never fight.

The Yankees did not have many men in the breastworks in front of us and we charged them and ran them out but up to our right near the road there was more of them and our men that attacked that part of the line stopped and lay down. Gen. Bratton send Lt. Judd down to our Regiment with orders to Col. Bowen to take them in reverse, that is, to get over the breastworks and go around behind them. Col. Bowen jumped right over the breastworks and ordered the men forward. About half of us jumped right over as quick as ordered. The Yankees were up near the road and could see us and commenced shooting at us. The men who were still in the breastworks would start to get over and a ball would hit them or pass over them and they would drop down. I got some distance from the breastworks and then went back, urged the men, calling them by name and saying, “Get over, come on, come on, be a man”. It was not very pleasant for those of us who were out of the breastworks with the Yankees shooting at us, we were in more danger than those in the trenches. If all the men had gotten over together and gone right on the Yankees would have left at once. They left as soon as they saw us coming around behind them and went in a hurry too. The Regiment went about halfway to the road and stopped, though there was no reason for them to stop. Five or six of us went up into the road. We were then in rear of the breastworks where the Yankees had been but they were gone. There was another little trench on our left and rather behind us. Twelve or fifteen Yankees were in it and we were only about fifty yards from them. They shot at us and killed Wesley Adcock of our Company and Elihu Kernals of Company A. I have thought so often of that since, if the whole Regiment had gone right on as they ought to have done those men would not have been killed. Those Yankees would not have shot at a whole Regiment and we could have captured them. We should not have gone ahead of the rest of the Regiment. When those two men were killed the balance of us went back to the Regiment and the Regiment moved forward. When we got up to the road an Alabama Brigade joined us on our left and the balance of the Regiment on our right but the Yankees were gone and out of sight except one Yankee. He was just ahead of one of the Alabama Regiments The color bearer of that Regiment tried to catch the Yankee but he didn’t. It was about a quarter of a mile from the road to the lower side of the field. The Yankee would run a piece and walk a piece. He kept looking back and the Color bearer doing his best to catch him but the Yankee got away.

The Yankees had a battery of several cannon at the lower side of the field and when they saw us coming they brought in horses and carried the guns away. I was so anxious for us to capture them. A few others and I were close to them when they drove out; if all the Regiment had kept in line together we could have shot the men that brought in the horses and captured the guns. Our cavalry captured a battery that was retreating and I think it was the one we came so near getting. We stopped there for an hour or two then followed the Yankees and attacked them again. They had two lines, one in breastworks and the other in front of the breastworks in an old field where the pine trees were very thick. Both lines could shoot at us and the line in front of the breastworks had breech loading guns that would shoot seven times and balls certainly came thick and fast. As soon as the Yankees commenced shooting at us, some of our men stopped, not many of them saw the Yankees. I saw them, saw some of them falling back. I recollect that I stood there for a while hitting a pine tree with my sword, not much more scared or afraid than I am now.

The Regiment remained there in the pines for a short time and then fell back to the field, stopped there in the pines for a short time and then fell back to the field, stopped there for an hour or so, then went back to camp. You will probably think from my account of the battle that quite a number of our Regiment were killed that day, but not so. The two that were killed in the road that morning when a little squad of us got ahead of the Regiment were the only ones killed in our Regiment that day. There were four men of our company wounded. This battle was fought on the seventh of October, 1864, and was called the battle of Darby Town. Though it was fought six months before the surrender of Gen. Lee, yet it was the last general engagement we were in except behind breastworks. After that our command was on the line about five miles from Richmond most of the time till Richmond was taken by the Yankees.

Once again, we find Hoke and Fields Divisions involved in an attack. The October 7 move at Darbytown Road was less successful than it could have been because of a failure on the part of Hoke to support the movement. Gary and Perry’s Florida men were also involved in the event. Gary’s men are the cavalry mentioned. Gary’s Brigade was noted for the ability to move fast and hit hard and served Ewell and Lee well in the defense of Richmond. It will come as no surprise that about 300 of them would not surrender at the end of the war. Rather they broke away and found Jefferson Davis and followed him to the end in Georgia. For more information about the attack see page 330 of The Struck Eagle by Baldwin and Asbury Cowart, The South Carolinians. See Lee’s Lieutenants, page 593 for additional details. Baldwin makes mention of the repeating rifles and the devastating effect they had that day.

Perhaps the most noticeable part of this commentary is the reluctance of the soldiers to expose themselves during the attack. A mood of gloom had indeed settled over the Army of Northern Virginia. Trench warfare was beginning to take its toll and the plan of earlier days was beginning to become a very real rarity. Indeed, the Confederacy was on her way up the spout, and nobody knew it better than the private soldier in the trenches. The Berry Benson’s and A.A. Dean’s were becoming harder and harder to find. Nowhere have I ever seen the disappointment and wonder men like Dean felt better expressed than in this passage. Lt. A.A. Dean represented a new kind of officer, not necessarily of the planter elite. He was a tested soldier, promoted solely on merit earned on the battlefield. Although he would not think of himself as a professional soldier, he was as much the professional as any man who ever finished West Point. Once again, the time honored tradition of the Spartans and the Romans was proven as fact. The best leaders are always those who have seen the elephant. Gus Dean not only had seen the elephant, but was also at peace with the beast. Death had become just another door he would have to open, sooner or later. The South Carolina of tomorrow belonged to him. South Carolina was no longer the sole property of the planters, nor did it yet belong to newly freed slaves. It would take another forty years but men like Gus Dean would find a voice.

On the fourteenth of October the Yankees advanced to our line about a mile north of where we were. As we had few men on that part of the line we had to go there. Directly after we got there we heard the Yankees cheering away out in the woods beyond the field. They came in two lines, one about a hundred yards in front of the other. The field in front of the breastworks was a large one and the Yankees came some distance after entering the field before we opened fire on them. The artillery was shooting and infantry as far up and down the line as could reach them, drums were beating and men hollering and what noise we all made! The Yankees did not come far till they lay down, got up and started again, but soon lay down again. A good many of them were killed and wounded and about five hundred were captured. It was said that Capt. J.Banks Liske went out to the Yankee line and brought in five hundred prisoners, but I don’t know whether that was true or not.

Longstreet was threatened by attack along this line and foresaw the feint. He moved Virginia militia into the correct place on his line and moved Fields Division to the point of attack, arriving just in time. The events occurred on October 17, 1864. The Union forces involved where the Divisions of C.A. Heckman and Gilman Marston. The story concerning Capt. J. Banks Lyle is in fact correct. Captain Lyle served with Company C, D, and G of the Fifth South Carolina. He personally captured three stands of colors and five or six hundred men. For a full account of the event, see The Struck Eagle, by Baldwin, page 335.

The day before the battle Capt. McDavid of Company F, came to me and said he had a pass to go to Richmond and expected to get back in time to go on picket that evening, but if he did not he asked me to take his Company out, that if he did not get back in time to go on picket that evening he would get back soon afterwards and relieve me. He came to the picket line that night riding a horse that he borrowed, said that he was in command of the picket line from the James River to the Chickahominy and he was going to wipe up the Yankees. Some of the Company persuaded him to go back to the breastworks so I had to stay on picket all night. We had very strict orders for no man to sleep a wink as they were expecting the enemy to attack us.

The next morning before it got light enough to see well Capt. McDavid came to the picket line and relieved me. He said when I brought my Company to the picket line that evening he would stay in my place, but we had to move up the line while his Company remained where they were, so that evening after the fight I had to go on picket again with the same orders as we had the night before. It rained for hours, it just poured down and the wind blew almost like a storm. We were out in the field and I was about as wet as if I had lain in a pond of water, and was very cold. I thought that night that if I had been dead I would not have been any colder up to my knees than I was. I could hear the wounded Yankees hollering through the night. I was well and not wounded yet I felt I was nearly frozen. How those wounded Yankees must have suffered.

Pickets usually went out about four o’clock in the evening and stayed till that time the next evening but our Colonel had us relieved next morning, as the night was so bad. I got so wet and cold and did not sleep for two nights. I got to a good fire, got dry and warm. It cleared off, was pleasant next day after nine or ten o’clock and I felt as well as usual.

Capt. McDavid was James F. McDavid and served as the Captain of F Company, Second South Carolina Rifles. The beauties of Victorian subtleties are so often lost on the readers of this century. It is a safe bet that Captain McDavid had spent some time with Bacchus on this long ago trip to Richmond. It appears he had come home, believing, as he probably had in 1862, that he could once again whip all of those people armed only with a Rebel yell and a corn stalk. Being well fueled by the fruit of that cornstalk often fed this particular point of view. Dean again shows us that friendship in time of war implies giving much more than just a thought. These two men could and would never have shared what they did after this war in the world that existed before it changed their lives forever. Dean would also tell you, if he thought you were not intelligent enough to know, that he also shared something with the enemy wounded who cried in the night. Woe is unto the man who sought a battle with a member of Company G after the war. On those feelings were built the south that was yet to be.

Nothing left to grind...

Not long after the battle mentioned above the Yankees came up in front of the breastworks where we were and though they got pretty close to us they were in the woods and we could not see many of them. Though there was a good deal of shooting there was but one killed of our men, and that was Major Willis F. Jones, assistant Adjutant General of Gen. Field’s staff. After his death Major Masters held the same position that he had held. On the retreat from Richmond he rode up in the rear of our Regiment when was having a skirmish with the Yankees and he was killed. The men liked Major Masters too.

After the day that Major Jones was killed our army was in breastworks nearly all the time. There was not much fighting done till spring. Our Regiment was placed on the line where some other men had built good cabins that we occupied so we got along pretty well that winter. We had to go on picket duty pretty often and rations were pretty short but that was our greatest trouble. On the tenth of December we had to start an hour before the day and go five or six miles down in front of our lines. It was very cold, the ground covered with snow. It was cloudy; we could not see the sun, too cold for the snow to melt. Our Company with some others were sent out as skirmishers and advanced a long ways through woods. The Yankees were out in the woods but ran when they heard us coming before we got in sight of them. I passed by one of their fires and there was a cup of coffee near it. We went on for some distance and crossed a branch, went up a steep hill to a field. As I was going up the hill I fell in company with Major Humphries who was in command of the entire line of skirmishers. When we got up to the edge of the field and men of our company saw that strong line of skirmishers they stopped. Major Humphreys walked right on and I did too. When we got ten or fifteen steps out into the field the Yankees fired and I think nearly all of them fired at Major Humphreys and me. There were weeds there about knee high covered with ice. A great many of these balls struck the weeds and ground near us and how the ice flew. I fell down many times when a shell burst or passed near me or the balls came like they did that time, but I think I got to the ground just a little quicker that time than I ever did before. Falling did not do any good; the balls passed and were gone before I got to the ground. The Yankees left in a hurry as quick as they shot.

Major Humphries is William Wirt Humphreys. He was born in Anderson District 10/30/37. He attended Center College in Danville, Kentucky. He served as a Lieutenant in Company B of the Fourth South Carolina and was Captain of Company C of the Palmetto Sharpshooters. He was promoted to Major on January 30, 1863 and was wounded at Frayser’s Farm. Humphries served as Mayor of Anderson and died on October 6, 1893. (Lee’s Colonels, Krick) His sword sash is on display at the Confederate Museum in Greenville, S.C. located on Boyce Ave. Vandiver says in Traditions and History of Anderson County, page 232; W.W. Humphries was a great skirmisher being nearly always in command of skirmish and picket lines. He was present at the unveiling of the Confederate Monument in Anderson and is mentioned often in her history.

John Murray of our Company shot at the Yankees and just as he shot a ball struck him below the eye, passed out the back of his head killing him instantly. That was early in the morning. We went on till we got within two or three hundred yards of the Yankee breastwork, stayed there till nearly night. If we stood up the Yankees could see us and would shoot at us. One time that day Capt. Lisles (Lyles) and Lt. Judd of General Bratton’s staff  two fools came and along and ordered us to go right up on top of the hill where the Yankees could see us plainly and I went. There was a large post there. I got behind it. Can Cox and Polk Cox came too, of them got right against me and the other against him, all three as close to the post as we could get, the Yankees shooting at us, the balls hitting the little cornstalks all around us. Polk and Can left pretty quick and I didn’t stay long. The balance of the Company would not go at all, they had more sense.

Just before dark we were ordered to move to the right and went into the woods, then went nearer the Yankee breastworks where the Yankees had cut down trees and bushes. The Yankee picket was there and though we could not see them, as it was dark yet we were near them and they were shooting at us. Some of our boys got down by the side of logs. When a ball struck the log on his side he would jump over on the other side, the balls would hit that side and he would jump back again. There was a good deal of laughing about it after we left but we did not laugh much at the time. It was a heap funnier afterwards. We stayed there for an hour or more and then went back to our quarters. We started about an hour before day in the morning and got back about ten o’clock at night. Though the ground was covered with snow, cloudy, and cold, too cold for the snow to melt any and we had to sit down most of the time, yet we had no fire at any time.

From then on till our lines were broken south of Petersburg on the ninth of April, we had a rather quiet time. Once our Regiment had to go to Gordonsville Christmas Eve Night. We left camp sometime in the night and went to Richmond, which was about five miles and went on the train to Gordonsville. We reached there about nine o’clock the next morning. While on the way to Richmond I noticed by the side of the road what I thought was a nice white sandy path. I thought I would walk in it. As I stepped on it I found that it was ice. I went right through and filled my shoes plumb full of water.

The Yankee Cavalry had attacked our Cavalry a good way from Gordonsville and driven them back nearly to Gordonsville before we got there. As they had so many more men that we had, we got off the train and started in a hurry to where our men and the Yankees were fighting. The women in Gordonsville were scared, as we were marching by their houses they came to the doors or onto the piazzas and told us if we would run the Yankee army they would give us a dinner. We went about half a mile and formed in a strip of woods near the road. The Yankees were in a field in front of us and shot at us a few times. One of their balls went through Frank Sherer’s breeches legs just above the knee but did not hit the skin. The Yankees left pretty quick when they found out the Infantry had come. We came back into Gordonsville, stayed there awhile, but did not see the women or hear anything about dinner. After this we were on the lines in front of Richmond and had, as I have already stated but little to do except drilling and picket duty. Soon after that I got a furlough for twenty-one days and came home.

Baldwin covers the raid on Gordonsville on pages 339-341 of The Struck Eagle. It was bitterly cold during this movement. It appears that Lt. Dean may have confused two incidents in his mind. Freeman in Lee’s Lieutenants on page 620-621 tells of the long awaited feast of New Years Day, 1865. It was a severe disappointment to the men in the field. Baldwin also reports this. Although the ladies of Gordonsville may very well have offered dinner, the entire Army was disappointed in the expected New Year’s Dinner. The dinner consisted of a small ham sandwich for each hungry man. Freeman reports concerning the Gordonsville Raid on page 671, of Volume Three.

On the ninth of April 1865, the Yankees broke our line south of Petersburg and that night (Saturday night) about nine o’clock we got marching orders. The order was “Get ready to move right away”. We were then five miles from Richmond. We started in twenty-five or thirty minutes after getting the order. We went about a mile and a half with light marching orders, were then ordered to go back and get all the baggage as it was to be a permanent move. So we went back in twenty or thirty minutes started again, we got to Richmond about one o’clock that night. They were getting trains ready for us when we got there. We thought we would get on the train in a few minutes but it was about three o’clock when we got on the train. If I had known when we first got to the depot that it would take them so long to get the trains ready for us I would have lain down and slept.

We reached Petersburg about daybreak next morning, went out to the west side of town and remained there all day. As soon as it got light enough we could see the Yankees. They had got around to the river west of town and they threw shells into town and about us during the day. We thought that we would have to attack them, drive them back and re-establish our line but the day passed and not much firing done. That night about nine o’clock our Colonel came around and told us we might lie down and make ourselves as comfortable as possible, but to hold ourselves in readiness to move at a moment's notice. As we didn’t know what minute we would leave and we were asleep very quick for we had slept very little the night before. We slept about an hour and a half and had orders to move at once. We started about eleven o’clock Sunday night and marched till Tuesday morning at three o’clock , twenty-eight hours.

When we started from Petersburg Sunday night there were over thirty men with the company. When we stopped Tuesday morning there were four. For two or three miles before we stopped men were lying by the side of the road, some asleep, some cursing because the general marched them so hard. I was determined to go till ordered to halt but I had about reached my limit. I could not have gone much farther. You would naturally suppose that after such a long hard march and sleeping so little for three nights, that we would sleep a long time if we had the chance, but I didn’t sleep more than two hours. I got up as soon as it got light enough to see. I was so sore I could not sleep well. Before we stopped Tuesday morning I thought if a knife had been sticking to the center of my knees they would not have hurt worse than they did. I pulled off my shoes as soon as I could see and there were several blisters on my feet, one of them was a half inch wide and an inch long. My feet hurt me so badly I didn’t think I could get my shoes on at all but after daylight the men of our company that had gotten behind on the march came up. One of them, George Gambrell, pulled off his shoes. When I saw his feet I put my shoes on and said no more about my feet, mine were bad but his were much worse. After that long hard march we stopped only for hours and then went on. I heard a number of officers after Gen. Lee surrendered say that they thought we averaged not more than two hours sleep out of every twenty-four hours during the nine days we were on the retreat. Though there were over thirty men in our Company and were kept going so much of the time, we had to cook what we ate. We had one frying pan and a camp kettle to do the cooking for all of us. Most that we got was bacon and corn meal. The bacon was all right only there was not half enough of it but the meal did not suit us at all as we had such a poor way to cook it. Most of us made mush out of it but some of the men did not like mush and tried to bake bread in the frying pan, would burn it black on the outside and have dough in the middle, break it all to pieces trying to turn it over. I would have eaten as much in three days if I had had it as we got in the nine days.

Gambrell, George W. (B) Wounded at Second Manassas, Killed at Winchester (U) Since George Gambrell is not listed in Kirkland, it appears that Gambrell was not killed at Winchester; supporting this position is that in 1902 he was listed as receiving a pension, see roster.(P)

We had several fights with the Yankees while on the retreat but no big battles. One day the Yankees came up on our left and were firing into our line. Our Company and several other Companies were sent out to drive them back. We drove them back for something like a mile from the road. We passed over a hill (an old field grown up in pines that were very thick) we went down to a branch. The Yankee Cavalry were up in a field beyond the branch and were shooting at us with pistols. There were a few of our Cavalry away up on a hill to our left. A Regiment of Yankee Cavalry charged our Cavalry and our fellows left of course as there was only a few of them. The Yankees came around the left of our line and got away up on top of the hill to the rear of our Company. We had orders to about face and attack them. I was in command of the Company and as soon as I heard the order I repeated it to the Company and started back, went fast and got ahead of the Company. They had seen these Yankees and were not in a hurry to get to them, the pines were thick and I could not see far through them. I got within twenty-five or thirty steps of them before I could see them. They were drawn up in line and when I stepped out in the open space where they were I thought, “Gone up this time for sure”. That is- I would be captured but I thought I would put on a bold front and bluff them if I could. So I started right towards them waving my sword around my head and said, “Surrender, Surrender”. They left about as fast as their horses could carry them but not any faster than I wanted to see them go. I guess they thought I was an officer in command of a line of men and they better leave in a hurry. There was one Yankee afoot. He started to run after the other but I said, “Halt, Halt!” He stopped, I walked up to him and ordered him to give me his pistol and he did. That was the last fighting we did.

Bratton’s men skirmished with federal cavalry twice during the forced march from Petersburg, April third and April fourth. Serving as drag, they were also committed at Farmville which was the last fighting done by the Brigade. Grant’s cavalry was engaging Bratton’s Division during the retreat through Farmville and I am inclined to think that is where Dean captured his cavalryman and this pistol, as his tone indicates the end was very near when this happened. This was on April seventh; the retreat was unmolested on the eighth. On Palm Sunday, Lee surrendered the tattered remnant that had once been the Army of Northern Virginia. The time of legends had begun; the reality was nothing more than ashes. For details of the retreat See Baldwin’s, The Struck Eagle, Douglas Southall Freeman’s, Lee’s Lieutenants, and Asbury Coward’s The South Carolinians.

The next Sunday morning Gen. Lee surrendered. Our Regiment was kept there till Thursday morning. During that time our Company received one small piece of beef. We started home on the morning of the thirteenth of April, 1865. I reached home Wednesday evening, the twenty sixth. While coming home the whole Regiment marched together for two days. On Saturday morning some of our Company and some of Company F came on to Danville, Va. There were a good many soldiers there. There were quartermaster and commissary stores there with a man in charge of them. The men wanted meat, flour, and molasses but the man in charge wanted to give us corn meal and things such as that. But that didn’t suit us, we made a rush and took such things as we wanted. Some came out with a ham, some with a side of meat, some with a shoulder, some with a saddle, some with a bridle and all such things as they wanted. There were molasses in a hogshead and the fellow were trying (to get) the bung out of the barrel. One of the fellows squatted right in front of the bung and was beating the barrel. The bung jumped out of the barrel suddenly and a stream of molasses about as big as a man’s arm gushed out in his face and covered him from head to foot. The men hollered and laughed.

There was an arsenal about seventy-five yards from the depot. The men wanted the powder to bring home. There were a good many down there to get the powder. Somehow or other it exploded and blew the roof of the house all to pieces. Many of the pieces fell on the depot. In a few minutes a man came up to the depot with a man on each side of him assisting him, with a piece of tent wrapped around him. I could see his legs nearly to his knees, they were black and badly torn, his hair was all burned off and his face was as black as a Negro. He was the worst looking sight I ever saw in my life. Another was brought up just barely breathing. Then the train moved off and that was all I saw of it. James Bowie of our Company came by there the next day, said there were sixteen men killed and crippled.

The formal surrender was on April 12, 1865, so ended our nation's bloodiest four years. Grant fed Cowart’s men, why the food did not reach Dean’s men is unknown. Certainly the supply situation was difficult but the consensus seems to be that most of Lee's men had something. Mixon mentions he was issued only one fourth of a pound of beef and that seems to be the ration received, and is in line with Dean’s reporting. Bratton had provided specific instructions to Cowart concerning his men and they were behind Dean, leaving a day later on the fourteenth. Cowart only mentions meeting with the commander at Danville and arranging transportation in his book, The South Carolinians. Cowart says he was told that the men were to take one route and the mounted officers another. Mixon says Col. Hagood gave them their parole papers and let them go, having no way to feed them. Baldwin feels that most men of Bratton’s Brigade avoided the trouble in Danville, however he does mention Frank Mixon’s account recorded in Mixon's book, Reminiscences of a Private. Mixon is pretty clear that he was involved in taking the warehouse mentioned above, speaking of being with the group that broke down the door, and planned the visitation. Mixon was a member of the First South Carolina (Hagood’s). Mixon may solve another mystery as well. Quoting from his book, Jim and I got in this raid, a small piece of bacon, a couple of blankets, and a McClellan saddle. So it appears that Dean may have seen an old comrade that he recognized, but never named. Again, Victorian sensibilities escape us. Certainly Mixon saw Dean’s train but I shall let him tell you. We then went on down town to the depot and found a train of cars standing on the track headed southward. The engine was fired up and every available space, inside and outside and on top was taken, and all that was necessary to move off was an engineer. Just away from where this train stood was a magazine, filled with all manner of explosive missiles. In some manner this magazine caught and soon the explosion occurred and pieces of shell were flying in every direction. Then those who were on the train began to get away, some even jumping through the car windows, others from the top. While this was at its worst a Texan jumped on the engine and cried out,”I am an engineer, I can run it. Give me a fireman”. Immediately someone answered his call. In the meantime, as the others jumped off, Jim and I got on, and our Texas engineer pulled out amid the confusion from the live magazine. Shades of the Wilderness, the Texas boys and Jenkins South Carolinians what a mix! And so it was that Bobby’s and Lee’s boys came home. Somehow I think it would please him to know a Texan, driving a stolen train, full of stolen goods, carried them. This following a raid on the supplies he was trying so hard to reach when it all ended. Certainly I don’t think this outcome would have surprised him. Marse Robert may he sleep peacefully, knowing the sons and daughters of these men still remember. The long march was almost over, sadly the dying was not.

We came on down to North Carolina. A Cavalryman overtook us having two mules asked if anyone in the crowd had a pistol that he would swap for a mule. I swapped the pistol that I had to him for one of his mules and rode it home. After that we stopped one night and slept under a shelter. There were fifteen of us. There were large posts put up, big logs laid on top of the posts, rails on top of the logs then covered with straw about six feet deep in the center and sloped off to the sides. There came a hard rain that night and the shed fell down all except one post and a part at one corner. William McClinton, William McCowan and I were sleeping together. William McCowan was not hurt and got out all right. One of those large logs fell on McClinton and crushed his head and chest and was instantly killed. There was a place in the back of my shirt as big around as the brim of my hat saturated with the blood that come from his nose and mouth. A piece of scantling fell on my head and hip, kept me under there for an hour and a half, until the others could get me out. There were four others hurt but they soon got them out. When they pulled me out I was paralyzed from my hips down but in an hour and a half or two hours I got so I could walk. I got on my mule and rode home.

... and so it ends, as life and war always ends, crushed in a pool of blood, as lonely men try to find their way home, to a time and place that is gone forever. May we all do that as well and with the grace of Lieutenant A.A. Dean, late of Company G, Moore’s Second South Carolina Rifles.