The Lone Star Defenders 12
I will state that General Hogg came to us neatly dressed in citizen’s
clothes—never having had an opportunity of procuring his uniform, so
that in fact he never wore the Confederate gray. He was not wounded,
was not under fire of the enemy; neither was his brigade, until the
battle of Farmington, which occurred the day that General Hogg died.
After his death and after the army was reorganized, “for three years
or during the war,” Dr. McDugald,—who afterwards married General
Hogg’s daughter,—Dr. I. K. Frazer, Thomas J. Johnson, one of the
General’s staff, Thomas E. Hogg, and the ever-faithful Bob all came
home, and of course related minutely to the widow, the two daughters,
and the three minor boys, John Lewis, and James Stephen, all the
circumstances of the sickness, the lamented death and burial of the
husband and father, Brigadier-General Joseph Louis Hogg.
Our camp was moved to a point about three miles east of Corinth.
Decherd, the quartermaster, resigned and W. F. Rapley was appointed
quartermaster by General Cabell. The rate at which our men fell sick
was remarkable, as well as appalling, and distressing in the extreme.
The water we had to drink was bad, very bad, and the rations none of
the best. The former we procured by digging for it; the earth around
Corinth being very light and porous, holding water like a sponge.
When we first went there the ground was full of water, and by digging
a hole two feet deep we could dip up plenty of a mean, milky-looking
fluid; but as the season advanced the water sank, so we dug deeper, and
continued to go down, until by the latter part of May our water holes
were from eight to twelve feet deep, still affording the same miserable
water. My horse would not drink a drop of the water the men had to use,
and if I failed to ride him to a small running branch some two miles
away he would go without drinking. The rations consisted mainly of
flour, made into poor camp biscuit, and the most unpalatable pickled
beef.
As fared General Hogg and his staff, so fared all the new troops who
saw their first service at Corinth. While many of the old troops were
taken sick, it was much worse with the new. We had one or two new Texas
regiments come into our brigade, whose first morning report showed 1200
men able for duty; two weeks from that day they could not muster more
than 200 men able to carry a musket to the front. The sick men were
shipped in carload lots down the Mobile & Ohio Railroad, some dying on
the trains, and hundreds of others succumbing at the different towns
and stations where they were put off along down that road south of
Corinth. It seemed impossible for the surgeons and their assistants
properly to care for the number of sick on their hands. Day after day
as I passed the Mobile & Ohio depot, I saw scores of the poor sick
fellows on the platform waiting to be hauled off. On the day we left
Corinth I passed Booneville, a station ten miles below Corinth, and
here were perhaps fifty sick men lying in the shade of the trees and
bushes. One of the attendants with whom I was acquainted told me he had
just returned from a tramp of two or three miles, after water for a
wounded man. At every house he came to the well buckets had been taken
off and hid, and he finally had to fill his canteen with brackish pond
water. Why these sick men had been put off here in the woods, when the
station was the only house in sight, where they could not even get a
drink of water, I do not know. The mere recollection of those scenes
causes a shudder to this day. I was told that two dead men were lying
on the platform at Booneville, and a Federal scouting party burned the
station during the day. If it was true, they were cremated.
As for myself, I was sick, but was on duty all the time. I performed
all the active duties of the brigade quartermaster, being compelled
to go to Corinth and back from one to three times daily, looking
after forage and other supplies; carried all orders and instructions
to the regimental quartermasters; superintended the moving of the
trains whenever and wherever they had to be moved; and, in fact, almost
lived in my saddle. But, with the exception of two or three nights
spent with the troops at the front, when the day’s duties were over, I
was comfortably situated at headquarters, having a good wall tent, a
cot, and camp-stool, and was kindly treated by General Cabell and the
members of his staff. Dr. S. J. Lewis of Rusk was our brigade surgeon,
and did everything he could for my comfort and, had I been well, my
position would have been as pleasant as I could have desired in the
army, as my duties mainly involved active horseback exercise, while
my personal surroundings were very agreeable. Nevertheless, I lost my
appetite so completely that I was unable to eat any of the rations that
were issued to the army. I could no more eat one of our biscuits than I
could have eaten a stone, and as for the beef, I could as easily have
swallowed a piece of skunk. The mere sight of it was nauseating. Had I
not been at headquarters doubtless I would have starved to death, since
there we were able to get a ham or something else extra occasionally,
and I managed to eat, but barely enough to keep soul and body together.
Dr. Lewis saw me wasting away from day to day, and advised me to take
a discharge—and quit the service; but this I declined to do. I paid
General Hogg a short visit one afternoon during his illness, and
another afternoon I rode over to Colonel Bedford Forrest’s camp, to
see my brother and some other Huntsville, Ala., friends. I found that
my brother had gone, on sick leave, with Wallace Drake, one of his
comrades, to some of Drake’s relatives, down the railroad. With these
exceptions I was not away from my post at any time. I must have gained
some reputation for efficiency, as the quartermaster of our Arkansas
regiment offered to give me half his salary if I would assist him in
his office.
All the time we were at Corinth Major-General Halleck, with a large
army, was moving forward from Pittsburgh Landing, on the Tennessee
River, near the Shiloh battlefield, by regular approaches. That is, he
would construct line after line of intrenchments, each successive line
being a little nearer to us. Hence our troops were often turned out
and marched rapidly to the front, in expectation of a pitched battle
that was never fought, sometimes being out twenty-four hours. On one
occasion an active movement was made to Farmington in an effort to cut
off a division of the enemy that had ventured across Hatchie River,
and the move was so nearly successful that the enemy, to escape, had
to abandon all their camp equipage. On one of the days when our troops
were rushing to the front in expectation of a battle, I came up with an
old patriot marching along through the heat and dust under an umbrella,
while a stout negro boy walking by his side carried his gun. This was
the only man I saw during the war that carried an umbrella to fight
under. As the battle failed to come off that day, I had no opportunity
of learning how he would have manipulated the umbrella and gun in an
engagement.
After General Hogg’s death and the promotion of Colonel Louis Hebert
to brigadier-general, the Third Texas was transferred to Hebert’s
brigade, and I was temporarily separated from it. On May 8 our year’s
enlistment having expired, the men re-enlisted for three years, or
during the war, and the regiment was reorganized by the election of
regimental and company officers, when all the commissioned officers
not promoted in some way returned to Texas. Captain Robert H. Cumby,
of Henderson, was elected colonel, Captain H. P. Mabry, of Jefferson,
lieutenant-colonel, and our Captain J. J. A. Barker, major. James A.
Jones was elected captain of Company C, John Germany, first lieutenant,
William H. Carr and R. L. Hood, second lieutenants. I was not present
at the election. Dr. Dan Shaw, of Rusk County, was made surgeon of the
regiment.
Finally, on May 28, we received orders to strike tents and have the
trains ready to move. General Cabell came to my tent and advised me to
go to the hospital, but I insisted that I could make it away from there
on horseback. The next morning the trains were ordered out. Dr. Lewis,
having procured about eight ounces of whisky for me, I mounted my horse
and followed, resting frequently, and using the stimulant. About noon I
bought a glass of buttermilk and a small piece of corn bread, for which
I paid one dollar. This I enjoyed more than all the food I had tasted
for several weeks.
On the day of the evacuation of Corinth, May 29, the Third Texas,
being on outpost, was attacked by the enemy in force, and had quite
a sharp battle with them in a dense thicket of black jack brush,
but charged and gallantly repulsed them. Our new colonel and
lieutenant-colonel not being able for service, Major Barker had asked
our old Lieutenant-Colonel Lane to remain with us for the time, so the
regiment was commanded by him and Major Barker. The regiment sustained
considerable loss in this affair, in killed and wounded. Among the
killed was my friend, the gallant young Major J. J. A. Barker; our
orderly sergeant, Wallace Caldwell, was mortally wounded, and John
Lambert disabled, so that he was never fit for service again. For the
gallant conduct of the regiment on this occasion, General Beauregard
issued a special order complimenting the Third Texas, and specially
designating a young man by the name of Smith, from Rusk County. Smith
in the charge through the brush found himself with an empty gun
confronting a Federal with loaded musket a few feet from him. The
Federal threw his gun down on him and ordered him to surrender. Smith
told him he would see him in Hades first, and turned to move off when
the fellow fired, missed his body, but cut one of his arms off above
the elbow, with a buck and ball cartridge. This was the kind of pluck
that General Beauregard admired.[1] On that day the entire army was
withdrawn and moved out from Corinth and vicinity. The manner and
complete success of this movement of General Beauregard’s has been very
highly complimented by military critics.
CHAPTER VII
BATTLE OF IUKA
Camp at Tupelo, Miss.—Furloughed—Report for Duty—Camp
Routine—“The Sick Call”—Saltillo—Personnel of the
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