INCIDENTS OF SERVICE WITH THE CHARLESTON LIGHT DRAGOONS.
[Reminiscences of Albert Rhett Elmore, private in the Dragoons, sergeant major 7th South Carolina Regiment, Hagood's Brigade, lieutenant 1st South Carolina Regular Infantry, Rhett's Brigade.]
In the year 1863, about the 25th of August, a detail of six men was made from the Charleston Light Dragoons for courier duty at Fort Wagner, near Charleston, N. C. In order to comprehend the duties of these men and the fearfully fiery ordeal through which they passed, it is necessary to give a brief description of the location of the fort and the surrounding grounds.
Morris Island is a long, narrow strip of land lying nearly parallel with the mainland, ending in a point about half a mile from Fort Sumter, called Cummings Point. On this point was built Battery (or Fort) Gregg, between which and Fort Sumter, on the one side, and Fort Moultrie, on Sullivan's Island, on the other, were the entrances to Charleston Harbor. Fort Sumter stands like a grim sentinel in the middle of the channel, commanding both sides and with power to make certain destruction of any vessel attempting either passage. It is built upon an artificial bank made of oyster shells, lime, and stones; is octagon in shape, built of brick. Its walls, probably thirty feet high and twenty thick, rise majestically out of the ocean itself, and the wild waves wash and dash against its very walls. The possession of Fort Sumter, therefore, was, in Federal estimation, the "open sesame" to the city of Charleston, and to them the possession of Morris Island meant the reduction of the grand old fort. History has already told the story of their great mistake and how, even after they had taken Morris Island and turned their land batteries and the concentrated forces of their monitors upon her and crumbled her brick walls into dust, she still stood, as impregnable as the Rock of Gibraltar, defying them to come and take her, climbing day by day higher and higher upon the roll of fame.
On Morris Island, three-quarters of a mile from Battery Gregg, was situated Fort Wagner, an earthwork of great strength, with wings, or high breastworks, extending to the marsh on the one side and the ocean on the other. Along these wings, where the men were comparatively unprotected, the casualties in the latter days of our possession were fearful. Memory fails to recall the names of the first detail except two. One of these was Alex R. Taylor, of Columbia, a boy of seventeen, a gallant and noble youth. For many years he has been sleeping beneath the sod in the old Taylor family burying ground in Columbia. After escaping all the dangers of the battle fields, upon many of which he bore a conspicuous part, he fell a victim, just after the close of the war, to country fever upon the eve of his wedding and was buried in his wedding suit. Alex was a great favorite with all, generous and brave to a fault. He was wounded in the leg by a fragment of shell while on duty at Morris Island. Later, when the Charleston Light Dragoons, as Company K, 4th South Carolina Cavalry, went to Virginia and, as a part of Gen. M. C. Butler's command, took part in all of General Hampton's battles, young Taylor was detached as special courier to General Butler and did his duty like a man, being especially relied upon when danger was greatest. Upon one occasion, while carrying a dispatch in the battle of Trevilian Station, his horse was killed under him. He was a noted and beautiful rider and would never ride anything but a good horse. Being on foot, he was soon captured. Never can I forget the delight
we all experienced the next day when "Little Alex," riding a Yankee horse, with his tail twisted to one side, came into camp, expressing his supreme disgust for "Twist Tail," as he called him, and vowing that he would ride him only until he could either buy or capture "a horse fit for a gentleman to ride." The best part of it was that Twist Tail's former rider, a full-fledged Yankee cavalryman, was trudging along on foot while Alex, in the Yankee's saddle, pistol in hand, was marching him in to the provost marshal. He had managed to make his own escape and then, without arms even, seeing this fellow approaching, secreted himself in the bushes and, stepping out suddenly, grasped the bridle of the horse, demanded the soldier's surrender, disarmed him, and took his horse and at the point of his (the Yankee's) own weapon marched him out of his own lines and landed him safely in a Confederate prison. Could anything have been more gallant?
After the battle of Trevilian Station, General Hampton made for the "White House," on the Pamunkey River, it being a large base of supplies for the Federal armies. As well as I can remember, it was on the 14th or 15th of June when at good daylight we charged the Yankee picket post. (Let me say here that in this little fight the Dragoons had dwindled, by wounds and deaths and capture, to three men, all privates, your humble servant being one of the three. I think Willie Fishburne was another, but am not sure, and who the third one was I cannot remember.) On Saturday, May 28, at Haw's Shop, we carried into action thirty-six men; we left nine dead on the field and nine more wounded, just half. On Monday, May 30, at Cold Harbor, or Frazier's Farm, we took twentyeight into the fight; again were half of our devoted little band taken—fourteen killed, wounded, and missing. At Trevilian, on the 12th of June, we were halved again; out of twelve, six killed and wounded, three dead on the field. The Dragoons had been annihilated.
As we charged in column, General Butler and staff and couriers leading, we took the picket completely by surprise. In my mind's eye I can now see the Yankees standing around their camp fires drinking buttermilk, while an ambulance with two immense tin cans stood near, showing where their supply came from. Cups and canteens were dashed to the ground, Winchesters and Spencers snatched up, and their "crack, crack" joining in with the reports of our boys' revolvers made things lively for a few minutes. In this little fight young Taylor, on Twist Tail, again performed a gallant deed. (I got it from his own lips at the time as soon as the firing ceased.) The affair with the picket was soon ended, and a furious cannonade opened from all their batteries and gunboats. Fortunately for us, they shot too high, their shells and grapeshot tearing away the limbs of trees, but doing us no harm. Our entire command, however, was withdrawn by General Hampton some distance back, where we were kept mounted in line waiting for developments.
It was while thus waiting that Alex Taylor galloped up on a beautiful bay mare, handsomely rigged, the saddle having a nice little cavalry valise attached to it. Ah! how vividly I
'recall his bright face as he exclaimed: "Doc [a pet name he
had for me], I've got my horse. Ain't she a fine one?" "That she is," I replied; "but, Alex, what did you do with Twist Tail?" "O," he said, "I turned him loose. I was afraid that if I brought him out too they would make me give my mare up as the property of the government. And now, say, let's see what this fellow had in his valise." Soon the articles were drawn forth: the photograph of a pretty young girl, some letters, a few articles of wearing apparel, and a dark
morocco writing case for use in camp. will send this home to mother."
Young Taylor had selected this mare while under fire, taking his pick of all the horses tied around the picket camp. He told me that just before he got the mare he saw a Yankee take deliberate aim and fire at Gen. M. C. Butler, not more than twenty steps distant, and miss him, and that as the Yankee threw another cartridge into the breech of his gun he with his pistol shot him before he could aim again. It is probable that this shot of Alex's saved the General's life. I do not think that General Butler was ever made aware of this incident; but I know it to be true, for Alex related it to me immediately afterwards, and I never knew him to state anything but truth.
And now for the sequel. Alas for human hopes! Twist Tail declined to remain with his former comrades. He had become a Confederate, and when our command retired he retired also, and when we went into camp, lo! at General Butler's headquarters Twist Tail appeared and called for his oats. I blush to state that immediately a special order was issued to young Taylor to bring up his captured mare and to deliver her to the proper authorities (?) and to get his own horse again. I forbear commenting further, nor will I say what became of the mare; there are those still living who know. I shall only add that Alex Taylor obeyed the order, but declined positively ever to recognize Twist Tail again. He went out into the country and bought a fine horse. Twist Tail was given by him to Benny Bostick, who rode him shortly afterwards to his own death, he being killed in the next fight, I believe, in which the company became engaged. Benny was a noble boy, still in his teens, and died like a man.
One other of our first detail to Fort Wagner was Josiah Bedon. No braver knight ever buckled on his sword to fight for his country than poor "Old 'Siah Bedon," as his friends loved to call him. One of nature's noblemen, a high-toned Christian gentleman, modest and unassuming, never shirking a duty, a warm friend of my brother, much older than myself, he was a man whom to know was to admire. He too sleeps beneath the sod, the green grasses and sweet clover of old Virginia blooming over the battle field of Haw's Shop. Unknown is his grave, but upon the heart of every one who ever knew him is engraved that proudest of all epitaphs, "Dead upon the battle field."
On the first day of September the second detail of the Dragoons, consisting of six men under Sergeant Holland, left Charleston to relieve Detail No. 1. This party was made up of volunteers for this dangerous duty. Memory fails to recall the names of the devoted six except myself and John Harleston, nicknamed by us "Pirate," a distinction conferred on him for the gallant part he took upon the first privateer of the war, the Savannah, which went out from Charleston and was soon captured. Old John and the rest of her crew were thrown into a Yankee dungeon and sentenced to be hanged as pirates, and nothing but the firm stand of President Davis and the assurance of immediate and double retaliation saved the neck of our gallant Pirate and gave back to the Confederacy a brave soldier, a cultivated' and refined gentleman, a boon companion, and a zealous friend.
The headquarters of our detail were at Battery Gregg, one man being continually kept on duty at Battery Wagner. I remember well one night when, our signal corps having interpreted the Yankee code of signals, we were notified that at a certain hour of the night Battery Gregg would be assaulted, and simultaneously an attack in rowboats with hand
"Ah!" said Alex, "I
a
grenades and scaling ladders would be made on Fort Sumter. The troops were all busy preparing for the reception of the Yankees, when I noticed the Pirate running around and begging for a musket. I said to him: "Why, John, old fellow, what have you got to do with a musket? You are a courier and have nothing to do but carry dispatches." He replied: "My neck has already been too d— near a halter, and I have already tasted too much of a Yankee prison to take any chances on this thing. I would rather die on the top of this battery, gun in hand, than to go there again." The assault was made, a futile effort easily repulsed; but the Pirate was on top, gun in hand, and nobly did his part.
We arrived at Battery Gregg on Tuesday, September 1; and on the following Sunday Morris Island was evacuated. During those six days Battery Wagner was subjected to the concentrated fire of the land batteries and the fleet and experienced one of the most fearful and terrific bombardments of the war. Fort Gregg was occasionally complimented with a shell or two.
One day, all being pretty quiet at Gregg, I went out of the bombproof to the top of the battery. I had borrowed a spyglass, and, having climbed up on a ten-inch columbiad, I was sitting a-straddle of the gun and watching the 300-pound Parrott shells from the monitors as they buried themselves in the solid wall of Sumter and, exploding, rained showers of brick, mortar, and iron into the sea. I was much interested until I was spied by a land battery on James Island and perhaps taken for an officer. A light Parrott gun was evidently fired at me direct, for the peculiar whish of the shell, so wel? (and only) known to those who have heard it, as it passed close enough for me to feel the wind of it was a sufficient intimation that I was the object of special attention; and if not already in the wrong box, I soon would be unless I changed my base. It is needless to say that I required no second invitation to "vamoose the ranch."
The bombproofs at Gregg were nothing more than square excavations under the batteries, walled on the sides and overhead with heavy timbers and open to the rear. On another occasion I was sitting in the mouth, or opening, of one of them when I heard the heavy thud of a shell as it fell on the battery overhead; and a second more and it had rolled from the top of the battery, and with another thud the huge iron ball (a 300-pounder) lay in the sand almost within reach of me, the fuse frizzing and frying and emitting sparks like the wick of a boy's firecracker on a Fourth-of-July morning, It was the cleanest, shiniest cannon ball I ever saw. We alt threw ourselves flat on the ground. Seconds appeared hours as we waited for the explosion, knowing full well that we could not all escape; and yet we did, for the fuse went out. A merciful God, he who takes care of the fatherless and the widow, took care of the soldier. Walking then, as it were, in the "valley of the shadow of death," he was with us. After the fuse went out, an ordnance sergeant took a bayonet, unscrewed the top, and poured enough powder out of it to have made the average South Carolina boy happy for a dozen robin seasons.
How different the fate of a sergeant of the 1st Regular Infantry the next day! Snipes, I think, was his name, a tall, handsome man with dark hair and side whiskers. He was standing outside of the bombproof watching the shells as they fell thick and fast into poor old Wagner. All at once I heard him exclaim: "Look out, boys! Yonder it comes, smoking like hell!" The next moment he was lying on the sand, his lifeblood ebbing fast from a fearful wound in his
side, cutting him almost in two. The shell fired from the Ironsides had exploded as he spoke, and a huge fragment-had given him his death stroke. He was tenderly lifted and brought into the bombproof, but knew himself to be beyond thuman aid. His tender messages to his wife and little child 'delivered to his captain were very touching. He was a brave man and died like a soldier.
Our duties were the carrying of dispatches between Gregg rand Wagner, each making the perilous trip in his turn. Imagine, if you can, a ride of more than one-half, perhaps three-quarters, of a mile right down the open beach, exposed all along to the terrific fire of grape, canister, and shell from the entire fleet, to which add the special compliments of Yankee sharpshooters with telescopic rifles, and you have a faint idea of the courier's dangers. These races we had frequently to make at night, with no other light than the stars of heaven and that of the bursting shells. Often would the tired, worn'out horse plunge into a hole torn up by some bursting shell, falling perhaps, but struggling again to its feet and again remewing the race for life. The nearer you were to Battery Wagner, the heavier the fire and the greater the danger. It was like entering or leaving the very mouth of hell itself.
When our detail arrived, there were some four or five horses for us to ride; but day by day they became less and less, until on the day we left the island, I believe, there was but one left living. This was a little gray mare, whose tail had been completely cut off near her body by a piece of shell. Many a soldier who served through that week will remember the noble little mare that, with the dreadful wound, weakened by loss of blood, and fearfully disfigured, did duty for the Confederacy to the last. She was ridden by me in carrying the very last dispatch between the two forts. And she was, I think, the last horse left alive on the island and passed with it into the hands of the enemy.
Apropos of the last dispatch, I shall relate a singular coincidence. Several years ago, while on a train going to Micanopy, Fla., I entered into conversation with a gentleman who lived near Micanopy, having gone there since the war. He incidentally mentioned that he was trying to collect data for a Major Gilchrist, who was, or intended, writing a history of the bombardment of Wagner and its evacuation. He told me his name was J. D, Johnson and that he commanded a company in a South Carolina regiment which was on duty in Wagner during the bombardment and at the time of its evacuation. There was a certain link in the chain of Major Gilchrist's narrative which he had been requested to supply, but had never been able to do so. It was why the guns when the battery was evacuated had not been spiked and why the battery had not been blown up. He remembered that just before the troops marched out of the battery a courier had been dispatched to Fort Gregg for rat-tail files, but he supposed that he had been killed or would not face the fire to return. He remembered perfectly well that the courier rode a gray mare with her tail shot off and that he was almost a boy, his upper lip just beginning to shade with down, with dark hair and eyes. I asked him if he thought he could recognize the man. "Look into my face," said I; "for I was that courier, and I can supply your link. The courier did return, for God took care of him; but he brought no rat-tail files, because there were none at Gregg to be had. This accounted for not spiking the guns." Captain Johnson at once traced the resemblance of the boy to the heavily mustached and bearded man and gave me a hearty grasp of the hand. I then told him why I thought the battery had not been blown up. Capt. C. C. Pinckney and
'
Lieutenant Marzyck were commissioned to perform the service, and I was the last man except these two to leave the fort. I learned afterwards that they fixed the fuses to the magazine and fired them; but they must have been defective and gone out, as the magazine failed to explode. Lieutenant Marzyck gave me his overcoat with the request that I take it over to Charleston.
After my return from Fort Gregg with the last dispatch, Col. L. M. C. Keit, who was in command, having no further use for me, let me shift for myself; hence my presence there after all the troops had marched out. I remember that a great desire struck me to see the inside of the hospital, and I walked into it for a look. Ghastly, not a living thing in it but myself, it represented truly "the bivouac of the dead."~ The bodies of the poor fellows who had been taken in there, mortally wounded, to die, lying around thick, with piles and heaps of legs and arms, made a ghastly photograph upon my senses and memory which will never be effaced while life lasts. I turned my back upon it, and, seeing a lot of double-barreled shotguns lying around, I picked up one at random and left the fort, to make my way as best I could back to Fort Gregg, Cummings Point, where the steamer was waiting for the last Confederates on the island. Those shotguns had been taken there to be used with buckshot, as more effective at short range, in case of an assault. The one I picked up I sent home as a souvenir, and when Sherman took Columbia his soldiers took this gun from my mother's home and beat it to pieces against a post.
Just a faint description of the bombardment as we left the island. As I said before, the signals of the Yankee code had been interpreted. General Beauregard knew that at nine o'clock the battery would be assaulted, that he could hold it no longer, and that to resist would be only a useless sacrifice of life. The Yankees had approached the fort by building parallels until they were within twenty-five yards of the battery. This was Sunday night, September 6, 1863. During the day an immense United States flag had been planted in twenty steps of our battery. It was Lieut. Bob Miller, I believe, of the Ist Infantry, who begged to be allowed to take a squad and dash out and get the flag. It would have been madness; hence the request was refused, and the sun went down with the Stars and Stripes waving defiantly within twenty steps of us and only waiting until after the shades of night should fall to be planted on Wagner itself. It would have been, though, in a deluge of blood had not our humane general seen that all had been done that brave men could do to hold the fort and and that the time had come to save life.
The evacuation was ordered to take place as soon as the cover of darkness was over us. The troops all marched out, but many a poor fellow was left weltering in his blood on the sandy beach between Wagner and Gregg, struck down on the way to safety.
Looking back at Wagner, having made my way in safety to Gregg, the scene was terrible and magnificent. To cover an assault, artillery fire is always doubled; and for every shot that had been fired at old Wagner there were now two. The Ironsides belched forth huge sheets of flame from her broadsides. The monitors, ranged around in a semicircle, added their lights to the magnificence of the scene. And from the land batteries, "louder than the bolts of heaven, far flashed the red artillery." The lighted fuses of the mortar shells, like little shooting stars, each describing the arc of a circle, cut the heavens in every direction, a veritable reproduction of a meteoric shower, grand and sublime, a fitting tribute to "man's
a
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ee a a
;
inhumanity to man." The shells bursting high in the air, mingling their sparks, as it were, with the lights of heaven, the terrible and continuous roar of a hundred guns, the teninch columbiad, the heavy mortars, to which were added the peculiar rifle crack of the Parrott guns and "scream" of its shells, all went to make a scene the grandeur and awful effect of which is beyond the power of man to describe. But hark! all of a sudden, in a second, the scene was changed; comparatively all became as still as the grave. The hour of assault was at hand. We who, familiar with the manner in which such things were managed, were watching from the deck of the fleeing steamer knew that old Wagner was being for the first time desecrated by the Yankee tread. In our mind's eye we saw them as, brave men though they were, rushing over the parapets, they met only those who were left dead in the trenches. "The pleasures of hope" had vanished; the star of Battery Wagner was set forever, and never again would it shine in the Confederate constellation; but, rising in history, it will shine there forever, a monument to the courage, endurance, and valor of the Southern soldier.
There was with us in the fort an old captain of ordnance. He was from Texas and had been commissioned for gallantry upon the field of the First Manassas. He was a tall, lanky old fellow, his hair white with age, and in appearance a typical Davy Crockett. He was known to us only as "Old Texas." I never knew his name. On the top of the earthworks were placed sandbags for the protection of our sharpshooters before the bombardment became too heavy for them to use their guns. These bags were arranged so as to have portholes between them. In the latter days of the siege to darken one of these holes was a sure invitation to a Yankee sharpshooter, who, with his telescopic sights, could plump his bullet through it at every pop. One day Old Texas, curiosity getting the better of his discretion, was just about to darken one of the portholes with his countenance to take a peep when he was warned not to do so. He replied that he could take care of himself and began (cautiously, however) to take his peep. He had just about gotten one eye to the hole, when "zip" came the bullet, and Old Texas was minus just the lobe of his left ear. I was told that a similar experience befell Colonel Colquitt, of the 6th Georgia, afterwards the distinguished Governor and United States Senator of that State. The Colonel, however, was more fortunate than Old Texas; for he lost only the palmetto cockade which pinned up the side of his broad black felt hat.
A shell had made a breach in our works which had to be repaired. A detail was made for the purpose and placed in charge of Major O'Brien, engineer on Beauregard's staff. The work was so perilous that one man was detailed to work at a time and only for five minutes. I have heard of many instances of the premonition of fate, but the one I am about to relate is the only one that ever came under my immediate observation. One poor fellow, when his turn came, seemed paralyzed with fear. To Major O'Brien's order to take the spade, to the taunts of cowardice, to the threat of the bayonet, his only reply was: "Major, I can't do it." At last the Major (a dark, tall man, as brave as Julius Cesar), out of all patience, said: "Well, sir, every man here must and shall do his part; but I will compel no man to do that which I will not do myself. I will work this five minutes; you, sir, shall work the next if I have to put you at it with the point of the bayonet." He stepped out, grasped the spade, and in the presence of his men did his full five minutes' work. Stepping back under cover, he again ordered the man out. The poor fellow, pale
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and trembling, pleaded in vain for another respite. At the point of the bayonet, literally, he was forced out. In sheer despera~ tion he grabbed the spade and, placing his foot on it, was. about to push it into the ground when a shell exploded near, and the poor fellow fell, a headless trunk, too dead to know what hurt hina.
In the battle of Frazier's Farm, or Cold Harbor, the Dra~ goons, with Captain Foster's company, were the last to be put into the fight. We had been so fearfully cut up at Haw's. Shop that I think General Butler would have been glad to. favor us here; but it could not be, for with two brigades we were fighting a whole corps. We were dismounted, our horses. left under cover of a heavy pine timber, and we charged through an open field to a wide lane between us and the field beyond, planted in wheat just beginning to ripen, it being early in June. In this lane, along the wheat field fence, our men stood and engaged the enemy.
It is needless to say that before we knew it we were badly whipped. E. L. Wells, John Chisolm, Dick Martin, and Tom Durant were some of the boys whom I remember particularly as being near me. I remember Wells, a cousin of the Hugers, of Charleston, S. C., standing up in the road and crowing like a chicken while the bullets were flying fast. Soon afterwards. Willie Fishburne was sent to inform us that everything was in retreat and to get out as fast as we could. As we leaped the fence to run across the field to where he left our horses, poor Jimmie Bee was shot through the knee right by me. I saw John Chisolm trying to help him off the field, but he was forced to leave him. His leg was amputated by the Yankees, from the effects of which he died in a Federal hospital. Just above me, in the corner of the rail fence, I saw a Confederate squatting with his gun to his shoulder, poked through the fence, and full cocked. I thought it strange that he did not pull the trigger or make any motion to run when we were all getting away as fast as we could. Upon closer notice I found that he had been killed, shot through the head in the very act of firing. Death had been so instantaneous that he still retained his position and grasp on his gun, which through the rails of the fence steadied the body as it had been last in life.
Running across the open field, we gained the cover of the heavy pine timber. Just in the edge of this timber was a small branch which, when swollen by the rains, had washed out a gulch about six feet deep. I plunged into this gulch to gain protection from the shot and time to rest. Here I found others of my companions slaking their thirst from the muddy little stream. I thought I was completely exhausted and exclaimed: "Boys, I can run no longer; I shall stay here and be captured." Just then a fellow from some other command rolled into the ditch with the exclamation: "If any of you can get out of here, you had better do it; for them is nigger troops and ain't a-giving no quarter." A sense of the ridiculous strikes me as I recall the sudden energy which this remark infused into the tired bodies of those who thought they could run no more. In a moment every man of us was scrambling out of that ditch and again into the race for life and liberty. I was ahead of Dick Martin when I heard him say: "I have given out; I can't run any more." I turned back, caught him by the hand, and pulled him along, and together we reached a place of safety.
This was late in the evening. After dark as much of the whole command as could be gotten together was drawn up in line and a strong detail of one hundred or two hundred men counted off for picket duty. Not more than a quarter of a mile, maybe not so far, was a long lane between two high
fences. At the end of the lane a few men had been left on duty as pickets until the detail could be made to relieve them. Night had set in, and it was very dark. The column marched down this lane, and when they reached the end of it they were mistaken for Yankees and fired upon. I distinctly saw the flash of their guns, and then began a stampede which was terrible to listen to and fearful in its results. Men and horses were trampled to death and lost. J. M. Howell (poor old "Malley"!), after getting out of the stampede, wandered in the darkness into the hands of the enemy and spent the rest of the war in the stockades of Point Lookout. Here also A. B. Phillips, of our company, received injuries which eventually terminated in death. Never can I forget the ridiculous appearance of that gallant soldier and accomplished gentleman, July Pringle, always the very pink of neatness, as he reached us the next morning, horseless, hatless, with a white handkerchief tied over his head to protect him from the rays of the sun. I heard General Butler on this occasion tell an amusing anecdote of Waring Boone. To know Boone was to love him. A man of infinite jest, his sense of humor could mot be restrained even in the face of the greatest danger. Poor fellow! he fell in our next battle at Trevilian, another noble sacrifice to our country's cause. After the stampede, as General Butler was riding around gathering up the men and trying to inspire them with confidence, he spied a figure in the darkness seated on the top of a fence. He called out: "Who is that?" "It's me," replied the figure. "Who is me?" asked the General. "Me, Boone," was the reply. The General, knowing Boone well, said: "What are you doing there, Boone?" "Well, General," said he, "I have just made a masterly retreat."
I should have said that the report of the trooper when he "scared" us out of the ditch about the nigger troops was a draw on his distorted imagination. We had been fighting a whole corps with only two brigades, which accounted for our being so badly whipped. I mention this incident merely to illustrate the dread that the Confederate always felt of ever falling into the hands of the brutal negro soldiery.
Apropos of this, I shall tell a little story which long, long.
afterwards I heard an old soldier tell as we gathered around the camp fire. It was told of a Confederate cannoneer. When Grant sprang the mine at Petersburg and the Crater was charged by a division of negro troops, "they came like an avalanche, with white troops behind them, and until our men could recover from the shock and demoralization of the explosion they were forced to give way." The gunner in question said: "I had the cannon rammer in my hand. On the end is always the swab to wipe out the gun. I had just performed this duty when I had to run. Forgetting to drop the cammer, I threw it over my shoulder and started to run." The swab was made of sheepskin and was, of course, black with powder. Using the graphic language of the gunner himself: "T tell you, boys, every time I looked back and saw that black, woolly thing I took it for a nigger's head, and I d— nigh ran myself to death." However, history tells how our brave troops turned, retook the works, and filled Grant's Crater with the bodies of those same dead niggers.
Quite an interval takes us to the 27th of October. Haw's Shop, Frazier's Farm (or Cold Harbor), Trevilian, Reams's Station, and other battles had robbed the Dragoons of many, very many noble comrades. Around the camp fires were missed many familiar faces; but the return of furloughed men, recovered from sickness or wounds, still gave to the Dragoons food for war. On the 27th of October we were in camp on
the Boydton plank road near Hatcher's Run, between Petersburg and Weldon. That morning we were awakened just at the crack of day by the firing of our pickets as they were run in. My servant, who rejoiced in the geographical cognomen of "Africa," in great alarm rushed to our fly and roused us by asking MacWragg in the most excited manner: "Ith dem gunths, Mr. MacWragg?" My brother-in-law, Col. Thomas Taylor, of Columbia, S. C., who was aid-de-camp to General Hampton, told me this story of Africa. It occurred after Sherman had taken Columbia, and we were being driven ahead of him through the upper part of the State. I had then been appointed by President Davis, who was a personal friend of my father and mother, as second lieutenant in the 1st South Carolina Regular Infantry; but, being cut off from my command, I had volunteered for the time being on General Hampton's staff. At Doko I had been ordered by the General to return to Columbia, gather all the information I could, and join him where and when I could. Of course I could not take Africa with me, but left him with Colonel Taylor, mounted on a little mare of mine.
On the march a few days afterwards a creek very much swollen from rain was reached. 'There was nothing to do but: to swim it. The general and staff plunged in and were soon on the other side. Colonel Taylor looked back, to see the "Chasseur D'Afrique" coolly sitting on my mare with a decided aversion to taking the water. "Why don't you come, boy?" called Colonel Taylor. "No, thir, Marth Tom, no, thir; I can't thwim." "Come on, sir," called the Colonel, "or, d— you, I'll shoot you." "No, thir, Marth Tom, don't shoot me; I can't thwim." In another moment he had leaped from the mare's back, turned her head into the stream, giving her a crack with a whip, and the brave little mare soon stood on the opposite shore, but without any "nigger." The Colonel in great wrath yelled to some soldiers, "Shoot the d— rascal"; but with "No, thir, Marth Tom," Africa disappeared in the bushes. They never expected to see him again, being satisfied that he had turned back into the arms of the Yankees. Judge of the Colonel's surprise when, awhile later, happening to cast his eyes behind, whom should he see on the little mare, riding along as big as life, but Africa himself. "Where the devil did you come from?" inquired the Colonel, not yet altogether in a good humor. "No, thir, Marth Tom, I can't thwim; but dith nigger kin beat a coon crawlin' a log." It is needless to say that the faithful fellow was soon again in the good graces of "Marth Tom," that he served me faithfully to the end, and still occupies a warm place in my memory and regard.
Soon "boots and saddles" was sounded by the bugler, and we were mounted and on the go. Our regiment, the 4th Cavalry, was thrown out as mounted skirmishers; but until three o'clock that evening we did not firea gun. Two prisoners were taken. They were Dutch and could not speak a word of English. I remember the light that spread over their faces when July Pringle, who had been educated in Europe and spoke German fluently, addressed them in their own language. Later on in the day I was sent with a dispatch to General Hampton and found him at his headquarters in a large field. The battle was raging all around, and the peculiar "zip! zip!" of the Minie balls was a familiar sound before I reached him. He gave me a verbal order to Lieutenant Colonel Stokes to bring our regiment up at once. Having delivered this order, I fell into line with my company. I remember that I was suffering with a fearful sick headache; and my friend, William A. Boyle, advised me to go to the rear. I knew that if I
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did it would be attributed to a different motive, so I went on into the fight. Wecharged the Yankees out of a skirt of woods and, forming our line along an old fence row, became actively engaged with the enemy at not more than one hundred and fifty yards distance, they occupying the edge of the woods on the other side of the field. Shug Bellinger, Tim O'Brien, a man from Captain Calhoun's company, and I grouped together behind a good-sized oak tree. Tim had been wounded at Haw's Shop and was but lately returned to the command. A little before sundown Tim was again wounded, shot in the shoulder. I heard him exclaim to Lieutenant Harleston, who was just in the rear of us, "Lieutenant, I've got it again," and then made his way to the rear. But a short time afterwards a bullet tore away Bellinger's coat sleeve between the elbow and shoulder and shattered the arm of Calhoun's man a little in the rear of him. It was late in the evening when Willie Fishburne came down the line distributing ammunition and told Lieutenant Harleston that General Hampton's orders were to hold the line at all hazards; that Mahone had gone around in the rear, and we would soon hear from him. A little later, and on the left of the line above us the Rebel yell announced that "Little Billy' was at work. I had heard musketry before; but then, tired and sick as I was, I thought as the long, unbroken roll continued, above which we could plainly hear the hurrahs of the troops, it was the sweetest music I ever listened to. In the excitement of triumphant battle we entirely lost sight of the fact that it was music full of death and destruction to the fond hopes of many a hearth being made desolate and that to many a happy home the return of a loved one, in blue or gray, would be looked for in vain. j In front of us until some time in the night a straggling shot and the whistle of a bullet told that "the foe was still sullenly firing." We won the fight, but at a fearful sacrifice. Col. R. J. Jeffords, of the 5th Cavalry, lay dead on the field; Lieut. Preston Hampton, the friend and companion of all my days, was no more; and our noble old chieftain, General Hampton, had seen both his sons shot down before his eyes—Preston killed and Wade Hampton, Jr., shot through and through. They were both with him as aids. The former was his regular aid; and Wade, who was on Gen. Joseph E. Johnston's staff, was visiting his father. Maj. Theodore P. Barker, his adjutant general, had also been fearfully wounded, shot through the hips.
It was a cold October night, and a drizzling rain had set in. I requested permission from Lieutenant Harleston to retire, being really for the time very sick. I made my way back to the house where General Hampton had his headquarters, only to find it deserted except by a few teamsters, with whom I spent the night. In the morning I set out to find my command. My way lay directly through the battle fields. I passed hundreds of dead soldiers and saw no sign of life until I reached an old broken caisson. Under it had crawled two wounded Yankees. Each had a leg broken, and they were jabbering in broken English and Dutch. They begged me to hunt up the ambulance corps and get them to come to their relief, which I did. The men, however, said: "Our own men first; Yankees afterwards." I was sorry for them, but could not aid them. Some distance farther on I was attracted by seeing something white in a heavy pine sapling thicket. Riding up, I found a camp cot. The pillow was as white as snow, while the blankets and everything about it were beautifully clean and nice. Upon it lay, pale with suffering, a fair-haired youth of seventeen or eighteen, with light complexion, delicate features, and as he opened them the softest blue eyes I ever
My heart went out to this poor boy lying so pale and helpless. His first word was that of all wounded soldiers—"water." I sprang from my horse and put to his lips my canteen, which I left with him. He then asked me if our ambulance corps were taking up the wounded and made the same request the others had. I had to tell him that it would be useless to try to get them, as I had already been refused. "Ah!" said he, "then it will make but little difference; for if I am not attended to soon, I cannot live." I asked him then where he was shot, and he replied: "My knee is shattered." He spoke like a man and a soldier, with not a word of complaint. When our command passed that way the next day, I again went to his cot, to find the soldier's battles forever over, for "he lay like a warrior taking his rest, with his martial cloak around him." His blue eyes were wide open, looking pleadingly to Heaven for that relief which had been denied him by the cruel fate of war.
After the fight on the 27th we returned to and occupied our same camp. The fight had raged right through it. The other troops were there engaged, our command, as before stated, having left it early in the morning. The next day a fellow from some other company in the regiment was taking his horse to water. Riding along about twenty steps in front of my little tent fly, his horse's feet sank into some soft earth. Examination showed that the earth had been freshly disturbed and the pine straw raked thickly back over it. "I wonder if a Yankee ain't here, boys," exclaimed he. "Better dig and see," replied some one. "I think I will," said he. "The fellow may have on a pair of boots, and my old ones," sticking forward a foot partially covered with a worn-out Confederate brogan, "have about done their do." He commenced to grabble. Soldiers are never covered deep. Soon a foot was found, slowly pulled up out of the earth, giving a shake to get the dirt off, and, to the fellow's delight, it was found to be incased in a good cavalry boot with a brass spur on it. To find the other foot and draw the boots from the feet of the dead Yankee was but the work of a moment. With the exclamation, "By golly, boys, I've got 'em!" he coolly pitched his old shoes into the hole, drew the boots onto his own feet, mounted his horse, after throwing a little dirt back to fill up the hole, and made off to the creek to water his horse with as perfect an air of satisfaction as if he had gotten a pair of pump-soled boots free of cost from a first-class ante-bellum shoe store.
Many decades have passed on the leaden wings of time since together we rode in the light of battle. Many noble comrades since the end of 'strife have crossed the river and joined the host in the great beyond. I often think of that beautiful poem which so touchingly describes "The Phantom Host" of noble Confederates who had laid down their lives upon the altar of their country, and in my imagination pass in phantom array the names and faces of the Middletons, the Robinsons, Pocher, Fairley, Miles, Prioleau, Lining, Huger, O'Hear, Bedon, Vanderhorst, Bee, Ravenel, Phillips, and many others whose names are familiar to all those who knew the Charleston Dragoons and all of whom are now at rest.
But the dead repine not; their ashes are as free from heat as our sorrow should be. The record is made up; the symmetrical shaft (in Magnolia Cemetery) in the midst of live oaks and on the border of the blue waters points unerringly to the azure sky. The story of life and death is chronicled; and for these Dragoons, as for the Confederate everywhere and at all times, there is and shall be the silent sympathy of love.
looked into.