Chapter 17
chapter seventeen of company h by sam r watkins this librivox recording is in the public domain the surrender the last act of the drama on the tenth day of may eighteen sixty one our regiment the first tennessee left nashville for the camp of instruction with twelve hundred and fifty men officers and line other recruits continually coming in swelled this number to fourteen hundred in addition to this major fulker's battalion of four companies with four hundred men originally was afterwards attached to the regiment and the twenty seventh tennessee regiment was afterwards consolidated with the first and besides this there were about two hundred conscripts added to the regiment from time to time to recapitulate the first tennessee numbering originally twelve hundred and fifty recruited from time to time a hundred and fifty fulker's battalion four hundred the twenty seventh tennessee twelve hundred number of conscripts at the lowest estimate two hundred making the sum total thirty two hundred men that belonged to our regiment during the war the above i think a low estimate well on the twenty sixth day of april eighteen sixty five general joe e johnson surrendered his army at greensboro north carolina
the day that we surrendered our regiment it was a pitiful sight to behold if i remember correctly there were just sixty-five men in all including officers that were paroled on that day now what had become of the original thirty two hundred a grand army you may say three thousand two hundred men only sixty-five left now reader you may draw your own conclusions it lacked just four days of four years from the day we were sworn in to the day of the surrender and it was just four years and twenty-four days from the time that we left home for the army to the time that we got back again it was indeed a sad sight to look at the old first tennessee regiment a mere squad of noble and brave men gathered around the tattered flag that they had followed in every battle through that long war it was so bullet-riddled and torn that it was but a few blue and red shreds that hung drooping while it too was stacked with our guns forever
thermopylae had one messenger of defeat but when general joe e johnson surrendered the army of the south there were hundreds of regiments yea i might safely say thousands that had not a representative on the twenty-sixth day of april eighteen sixty five our cause was lost from the beginning our greatest victories chickamauga and franklin were our greatest defeats our people were divided upon the question of union and secession our generals were scrambling for who ranked the private soldier fought and starved and died for naught our hospitals were crowded with sick and wounded but half provided with food and clothing to sustain life our money was depreciated to naught and our cause lost we left our homes four years previous amid the waving of flags and handkerchiefs and the smiles of the ladies while the fife and drum were playing dixie and the bonny blue flag we bid farewell to home and friends the bones of our brave southern boys lie scattered over our loved south they fought for their country and they gave their lives freely for that country's cause and now they who survive sit like marius amid the wreck of carthage sublime even in ruins
other pens abler than mine will have to chronicle their glorious deeds of valor and devotion in these sketches i have named but a few persons who fought side by side with me during that long and unholy war in looking back over these pages i ask where now are many whose names have appeared in these sketches they are up yonder and are no doubt waiting and watching for those of us who are left behind and my kind reader the time is coming when we too will be called while the archangel of death is beating the long roll of eternity and with us it will be the last reveille god himself will sound the assembly on yonder beautiful and happy shore where we will again have a grand reconfederation we shed a tear over their flower-strewn graves we live after them we love their memory yet but one generation passes away and another generation follows we know our loved and brave soldiers we love them yet but when we pass away the impartial historian will render a true verdict and a history will then be written in justification and vindication of those brave and noble boys who gave their all in fighting the battles of their homes their country and their god
the united states has no north no south no east no west we are one and undivided adieu my kind friends soldiers comrades brothers all the curtain is rung down the footlights are put out the audience is all left and gone home the seats are vacant and the cold walls are silent the gaudy tinsel that appears before the footlights is exchanged for the dress of the citizen coming generations and historians will be the critics as to how we have acted our parts the past is buried in oblivion the blood-red flag with its crescent and cross that we followed for four long bloody and disastrous years has been folded never again to be unfurled we have no regrets for what we did but we mourn the loss of so many brave and gallant men who perished on the field of battle and honor i now bid you an affectionate adieu
but in closing these memoirs the scenes of my life pass in rapid review before me in imagination i am young again to-night i feel the flush and vigor of my manhood am just twenty-one years of age i hear the fife and drum playing dixie and bonnie blue flag i see and hear our fire-eating stumperators tell of the right of secession and disunion i see our fair and beautiful women waving their handkerchiefs and encouraging their sweethearts to go to the war i see the marshalling of the hosts for glorious war i see the fine banners waving and hear the cry everywhere to arms to arms and i see our country at peace and prosperous our fine cities look grand and gay our fields rich and abundant harvests our people happy and contented all these pass in imagination before me then i look and see glorious war in all its splendor i hear the shout and charge the boom of artillery and the rattle of small arms i see gaily dressed officers charging backwards and forwards upon their metal war-horses clothed in the panoply of war i see victory and conquest upon flying banners i see our arms triumph in every battle and oh my friends i see another scene i see broken homes and broken hearts i see war and all its desolation i see a country ruined and impoverished i see a nation disenfranchised and maltreated i see a commonwealth forced to pay dishonest and fraudulent bonds that were issued to crush that people
i see sycophants licking the boots of their country's oppressor i see other and many wrongs perpetrated upon a conquered people but maybe it is but the ghosts and phantoms of a dreamy mind or the wind as it whistles around our lonely cabin home the past is buried in oblivion the mantle of charity has long ago fallen upon those who think differently from us we remember no longer wrongs and injustice done us by any one on earth we are willing to forget and forgive those who have wronged and falsified us we look up above and beyond all those petty grovelling things and shake hands and forget the past and while my imagination is like the weaver's shuttle playing backward and forward through these two decades of time i ask myself are these things real did they happen are they being enacted to-day or are they the fancies of the imagination and forgetful reverie is it true that i have seen all these things that they are real incidents in my life's history that i see those brave and noble countrymen of mine laid low in death and weltering in their blood
did i see our country laid waste and in ruins did i see soldiers marching the earth trembling and jarring beneath their measured tread did i see the ruins of smouldering cities and deserted homes did i see my comrades buried and see the violet and wild flowers bloom over their graves did i see the flag of my country that i had followed so long furled to be no more unfurled for ever surely they are but the vagaries of mine own imagination surely my fancies are running wild to-night but hush i now hear the approach of battle that low rumbling sound in the west is the roar of cannon in the distance that rushing sound is the tread of soldiers that quick lurid glare is the flash that precedes the cannon's roar and listen that loud report that makes the earth tremble and jar and sway is but the bursting of a shell as it screams through the dark tempestuous night that black ebon cloud where the lurid lightning flickers and flares that is rolling through the heavens is the smoke of battle beneath is being enacted a carnage of blood and death listen the soldiers are charging now the flashes and roaring now are blending with the shouts of soldiers and the confusion of battle
but reader time has brought his changes since i a young ardent and impetuous youth burning with a lofty patriotism first shouldered my musket to defend the rights of my country lifting the veil of the past i see many manly forms bright in youth and hope standing in view by my side in company h first tennessee regiment again i look and half those forms are gone again and gray locks and wrinkled faces and clouded brows stand before me before me too i see not in imagination but in reality my own loved jenny the partner of my joys and the sharer of my sorrows sustaining comforting and cheering my pathway by her benignant smile pouring the sunshine of domestic comfort and happiness upon our humble home making life more worth the living as we toil on up the hill of time together with the bright pledges of our early and constant love by our side while the sunlight of hope ever brightens our pathway dispelling darkness and sorrow as we hand in hand approach the valley of the great shadow
the tale is told the world moves on the sun shines as brightly as before the flowers bloom as beautifully the birds sing their carols as sweetly the trees nod and bow their leafy tops as if slumbering in the breeze the gentle winds fan our brow and kiss our cheek as they pass by the pale moon sheds her silvery sheen the blue dome of the sky sparkles with the trembling stars that twinkle and shine and make night beautiful and the scene melts and gradually disappears forever chapter seventeen and of company h by sam r watkins recording by winston tharp
