Chapter XVIII: Members of the Regiment Now Living

The following is a list of members now living (from latest information) who either surrendered with the Regiment or were honorably discharged therefrom for disability incurred during the war:

FIELD AND STAFF.

Col. Baxter Smith, Chattanooga, Tenn.; Adjt. George B.
Guild, Nashville, Tenn.; Sergt. Maj. W. A. Rushing,
Lebanon, Tenn.; Surgeon W. T. Delaney, Bristol, Va.;
Assistant Surgeon J. T. Allen, Caney Springs, Tenn.;
Acting Quartermaster R. O. McLean, Nashville, Tenn.;
Acting Assistant Quartermaster Bob Corder, Williamson
County, Tenn.; Acting Commissary First Lieut. J. T. Barbee,
Sardis, Ky.

COMPANY A.

Dr. Tom Allen, Caney Springs, Tenn.; Joe Yarbrough,
Lewisburg, Tenn.; James Tippett, Greenville, Tex.; Thomas
Sherron, Chapel Hill, Tenn.; William Edwards, Chapel
Hill, Tenn.; Scott Davis, Lewisburg, Tenn.; Joe Yarbrough
(second), Lewisburg, Tenn.; W. R. Wynn, Lewisburg, Tenn.;
Polk Warner, Lewisburg, Tenn.; Ben Jobe, Paris, Tenn.; Jim
Wilbern, Oklahoma; Melville Porter, McKenzie, Tenn.; William
(“Dutch”) Alexander, Chattanooga, Tenn.; Gid Alexander, New
Orleans, La.

COMPANY B.

Lieut. G. W. Carmack, Jonesboro, Tenn.; Henry Delaney,
Bristol, Va.; Abe McClelland, Bluff City, Tenn.; W. C.
Ingles, Knoxville, Tenn.; Dr. W. T. Delaney, Bristol, Va.

COMPANY C.

Lieut. R. L. Scruggs, Stonewall, Tenn.; Lieut. Samuel
Scoggins, Nashville, Tenn.; Pat Moss, Smith County, Tenn.;
Ike Evans, Smith County, Tenn.; Dave Shipp, Smith County,
Tenn.; William Bell, Big Spring, Tenn.; Sam Flippin,
Birmingham, Ala.; Don Flippin, Smith County, Tenn.; Thomas
Sanders, Nashville, Tenn.; Bob Grissim, Smith County, Tenn.

COMPANY D.

First Lieut. Robert Bone, Texas; Second Lieut. J. T. Barbee,
Sardis, Ky.; Third Lieut. J. A. Arnold, Lebanon, Tenn.

I feel that I ought to add here that Lieutenant Bone was one of the best and most active officers we had. He was always to be found in the forefront of the battle, and was wounded several times. In one of the last battles we had he was captured by the enemy; and while he was being carried to Johnson’s Island with other prisoners he leaped from the train, making his escape into Canada, and was fortunate enough to get transportation upon a blockade runner coming into Charleston, S. C., reporting back to his regiment in four weeks after being captured. I am not positive that he is living to-day, but he was living in Texas when last heard from, more than a year ago.

COMPANY E.

First Lieut. H. L. Preston, Woodbury, Tenn.; Third Lieut.
John Fathera, Woodbury, Tenn.; N. Bony Preston, Woodbury,
Tenn.; Thomas Vinson, Henry Gillam, William Wood, Warren
Cummings, Al Kennedy, William Davis, N. A. Mitchell, I. Y.
Davis, Eph Neely, R. S. Spindle, W. D. Coleman, John Knox,
John H. Wharton, B. F. Pinkerton, I. W. Stewart, Reese
Hammons, John Hayes.

COMPANY F.

Lieutenant Williamson, Kentucky; W. H. Davis, Dallas, Tex.;
J. H. Davis, Martha, Tenn.; Zack Thompson, Shelbyville, Tenn.

COMPANY G.

Capt. J. W. Nichol, Murfreesboro, Tenn.; Lieut. F. A.
McKnight, Sergt. W. R. Fowler, Corp. I. C. Carnahan, L. M.
Roberts, D. D. Murray, S. M. McGill, W. P. Gaither, L. L.
Gaither, T. A. Gaither, S. M. McKnight, Robert Patrick,
A. C. Good, I. F. Good, I. E. Neely, N. I. Ivie, W. H.
Taylor, John Nugent, Houston Miller, L. W. Jarnigan, A. H.
Youree, I. C. Coleman, W. W. Gray, B. L. Sagely, E. Bynum,
E. H. Murrey, H. N. Jones, C. W. Moore, Calvin Brewer, James
Love, Bob Knox.

Capt. J. W. Nichol, of Company G, says that of those living at this time, sixteen of them were young men on their way to join his company when the surrender occurred. The following are the circumstances in the case: Some weeks before the surrender, in 1865, he had sent his first lieutenant, Dave Youree, a most excellent and reliable officer, to Cannon and Rutherford Counties, Tenn., to obtain recruits. Just before the surrender Youree was returning to the command with the sixteen young men who had enlisted in said counties and whom he had sworn into the company and Regiment. Upon reaching the State of Georgia on their way to join the Regiment, then in North Carolina, they met General Forrest and his command and were informed of the condition of the Confederate army. At General Forrest’s suggestion, they remained with him, participated in his engagements around Selma, Ala., and surrendered with General Forrest’s command, receiving their paroles at Gainesville, Ala., in May, 1865, as members of Company G, Fourth Tennessee Regiment. The sixteen young men are certainly entitled to be named in the list of living in Company G at this time, for they gave the best evidence of their manhood and patriotism by leaving voluntarily their homes behind the lines under the forlorn and desperate circumstances surrounding them and the Confederate army.

COMPANY H.

J. C. Ivey, Clear Lake, Tex.; Sam H. Bennett, Jasper, Tenn.;
John Davis, Jasper, Tenn.; William T. Warren, Dayton, Tenn.;
Zebulon Ballew, Sequatchie Valley, Tenn.; Billy Phelps,
Sequatchie Valley, Tenn.; Robert Phelps, Sequatchie Valley,
Tenn.

I have just received a letter from J. C. Ivey, of Company H, giving me the foregoing list of his company. I want to thank him again for the interest and assistance he has given me in preparing the facts for this narrative of the Regiment, and I feel that I ought to make his letter a part of the narrative. The letter is as follows:

CLEAR LAKE, TEX., October 16, 1912.

Maj. George B. Guild, Nashville, Tenn.

_My Dear Adjutant and Comrade_: Your letter came in due
time, and this is the first opportunity I have had to answer
your question in regard to those still living of Company H.
There were thirty-four who were surrendered at Charlotte,
N. C. I shall never forget that sorrowful day when we gave
up our guns. That morning our beloved General Wheeler came to
our Regiment and announced that we were a subjugated people
and, while the tears were flowing from his eyes, advised us
to return home and make as good citizens as we had soldiers
and all would come out right. So far as I know, not one of
those that were with us in the closing of this sad drama
ever went wrong in any way. As for those that absented
themselves, I have had no communication with any of them.

I remain your old comrade,
J. C. IVEY.

COMPANY I.

Lieut. John W. Storey, Forest City, Ark.; B. P. Harrison,
Albany, Ky.; Joel Brown, Glasgow, Ky.; Z. T. Crouch,
Bellbuckle, Tenn.; Dr. Henry Sienknecht, Oliver Springs,
Tenn.; John Hall, Tennessee; Isaac Ford, Rome, Tenn.;
Orville I. Moate, Washington, D. C.; Lieut. William H.
Hildreth, Alvarado, Tex.; John N. Simpson, Dallas, Tex.;
William Wallace, Texas; Jeff Boles, Phœnix, Ariz.; Henry
Gatewood, Ennis, Tex.

COMPANY K.

Frank Anderson, Nashville, Tenn.; Joe Miller, Lebanon,
Tenn.; Hal Shutt, Lebanon, Tenn.; Bryant Goodrich,
Nashville, Tenn.; James Thomas, Los Angeles, Cal.

I cannot hear of a single one of Company L who is alive to-day.

Some of the foregoing were young men just arriving at maturity and came out to the Regiment from Tennessee (then occupied by Federal forces) at the peril of their lives and joined it when the cause was a forlorn hope indeed. Of this class Capt. Frank A. Moses, the Special Examiner on the State Confederate Pension Board, had occasion to say in his annual report to the Confederate Association of Bivouacs and Camps at Shelbyville recently:

Comrades, it was easy for you and me to go out in 1861
or 1862, when the bright flags rippled in the breezes,
the bands played “Dixie,” and the girls waved their
handkerchiefs, bidding us Godspeed; but when the dark days
came and the flags were tattered and blood-stained, when
the bands were playing the “Dead March” and the noble women
mourned the death of loved ones, it was not so easy. When
the old men and the boys in 1864 picked up the guns that
had been thrown down by the quitters and stepped into our
depleted ranks, they showed their faith by their works,
and they are entitled to all honor.

I take occasion to add that I have been intimately associated with Captain Moses on the Pension Board for twenty years. He is most efficient in the position he occupies. He joined the Confederate army when but a boy. After engaging in the battle of Chickamauga, his regiment (the Sixty-Second Tennessee Infantry) was sent with Gen. Bushrod Johnson’s brigade to the Army of Northern Virginia. He was severely wounded at the battle of Drewry’s Bluff, on the James River, below Richmond; and after convalescing from his wound he reported to his command at Petersburg, and surrendered with General Lee at Appomattox on the 9th of April, 1865.

First Lieut. Rice McLean, of Company A, an elegant gentleman and brave officer, was in command of his company most of the time, especially during the latter part of the war. His captain, Dave Alexander, was the oldest man in the Regiment and was much disabled by wounds. Lieutenant McLean was frequently called upon to perform the most hazardous and important duties, which he did with dispatch and to the highest satisfaction of the commanding officer. None stood higher in the Regiment or was more respected for his fidelity as a soldier. He was most amiable in character and in kindly comradeship toward his fellow soldiers. He was wounded several times in battle. He died a few years ago in Kentucky, where he had lived since the close of the war. I could not resist the opportunity of saying a word regarding my warm personal friend, Rice McLean. He was a brother of the wife of Capt. Tom Hardison, one of Nashville’s most worthy and honorable citizens.

Lieut. J. W. Storey, who was in command of Company I at the surrender, writes me that I should speak of the killing of Eb Crozier, of his company, who was a most intelligent, lovable man, and a brave soldier during the entire war. He received his parole of honor with the rest of the Regiment at Charlotte, N. C., May 3, 1865, and started home with us; but before reaching Sweetwater, Tenn., he took the road to the right to go to his home in Upper East Tennessee, which he had not visited for years. Upon reaching home, he was brutally murdered by a band of Union bushwhackers, with his parole of honor in his pocket, the ink with which it was written being hardly dry upon the paper. A more dastardly act was never perpetrated. His name has been placed among the killed in battle of his company, and I am sure that the reader will say that it rightfully belongs there, together with any other honor that could be attached to his memory.

Capt. James H. Britton, of Company K, was a native of Lebanon, Tenn., and was educated at Cumberland University, where he graduated with highest honors as a civil engineer. He was first lieutenant of the “Cedar Snags,” of which Paul F. Anderson was captain. When the Fourth Tennessee Cavalry Regiment was organized, the company became a part of it. Captain Anderson became lieutenant colonel and Lieutenant Britton was made captain of Company K, both continuing as such until the surrender of the army, in 1865, at Greensboro, N. C. During the greater part of the war Company K was the escort of the commanding general. Captain Britton was a faithful, brave, and intelligent officer. He and his company were well known to the Army of Tennessee by the important duties that they were called upon to do in carrying orders to different parts of the field, frequently where the battle raged fiercest and hottest. The company’s killed and wounded was heavy, as will be seen on pages 165 and 166. Soon after the war Captain Britton moved to Texas, where he was successful as a business man and accumulated quite a fortune. He died there many years ago, a public-spirited, most worthy citizen. Dr. R. L. C. White and Wat Weakley, who were well-known citizens of Nashville, Tenn., were soldiers in this company, having joined it when it was first organized, and served throughout the war.

I have received from a friend the following record of Capt. J. W. Nichol prior to his company’s being attached to the Fourth Tennessee Cavalry Regiment, which I take pleasure in making a part of this narrative:

Capt. J. W. Nichol was born and reared near Readyville,
Rutherford County, Tenn., February 26, 1839. He entered
the Confederate service at Murfreesboro, Tenn., May 21,
1861, as a lieutenant in Captain Wood’s Company H, Joe B.
Palmer’s Eighteenth Tennessee Regiment, serving in same
until a few days before the first battle at Fort Donelson,
February, 1862. On a march from Bowling Green, Ky., we left
him, sick of measles, at Russellville, Ky.; therefore he
was not in the fight at Fort Donelson, where the Eighteenth
Tennessee Regiment was captured and sent to prison. He
was sent back with the sick to Bowling Green, thence to
Nashville and Murfreesboro. At Murfreesboro he reported to
Gen. A. S. Johnston, who directed him to get together all
the members of the Eighteenth Tennessee Regiment who might
be at home on sick furlough, also any who might have made
their escape from prison, organizing them into a company or
battalion, and connect the same with some other regiment.
But before Captain Nichol could do this General Johnston,
with his army, moved to Shelbyville, where Nichol reported
to him again, informing him that he had met a number of
the command who desired to join other regiments instead
of forming a new command. General Johnston directed him to
assign these men to any desired company until the Eighteenth
should be exchanged. Nichol then, with nine others of the
Eighteenth Tennessee, procured horses and fell back with
General Johnston to Corinth, Miss., where they attached
themselves to General Buckner’s old escort, a Kentucky
company commanded by Captain Kerr, who had made their
escape from Fort Donelson and were serving as an escort
for General Hardee. Nichol served as a private soldier with
this company until after the battle of Corinth, April 6,
7, 1862. Some time after this battle he went to General
Beauregard’s headquarters (General Johnston having been
killed in the engagement on April 6), and asked permission
to go into Middle Tennessee and make up a cavalry company,
which request was granted. With considerable difficulty
he made his way to the neighborhood of his old home, there
being Federal troops, stationed at Murfreesboro, who were
scouting the surrounding country frequently. On one occasion
Captain Unthanks, with a Yankee company of seventy-two men,
came out from Murfreesboro to Readyville (Captain Nichol’s
old home), and went on to Woodbury and McMinnville on a
scouting expedition. Colonel Starnes, commanding the Fourth
Tennessee Cavalry, was near McMinnville and, upon learning
of the scouting party headed by Captain Unthanks, moved into
McMinnville in a few hours, and made inquiry for a man fully
acquainted with the roads leading therefrom. Captain Nichol,
who was just in from Corinth, Miss., reported to Colonel
Starnes that he was conversant with all the roads leading
to Murfreesboro. Leaving McMinnville late in the afternoon,
Colonel Starnes and his men reached Woodbury about daylight
of the next day, finding that Captain Unthanks had stopped
there to feed his horses and had just left. Instantly
pursuing, Starnes caught them at Readyville (Nichol’s
old home), eating breakfast, Captain Unthanks and most of
his men being at Major Tallay’s (the old Ready residence).
Starnes was upon them before they were aware, killing
three and capturing all except two others, who made their
escape to Murfreesboro. Captain Nichol was then engaged in
making up his company. Gen. Bedford Forrest passed through
Readyville July 13, 1862; and Nichol, with a few unorganized
men, fell in line and proceeded to Murfreesboro, where
they participated in the first fight at Murfreesboro, in
which they were victorious, taking all the prisoners to
McMinnville to parole them. From there Nichol proceeded to
Readyville, where he made up his company. About this time,
learning of the approach of General Bragg toward Middle
Tennessee, he, with about seventy unarmed young boys and
men, riding all night, passing through Liberty, the home
of Stokes and Blackburn (Yankee bushwhackers), got safely
through to Sparta just in time to meet Bragg on his march
into Kentucky. General Polk took Nichol’s company for a time
as couriers. Soon afterwards they were ordered to report
to Maj. J. R. Davis, commanding a battalion of cavalry,
and were in the fight at Perryville, Ky., fighting every
day until they reached Cumberland Gap, losing several men.
Thence they went to Murfreesboro, in which battle they were
in Davis’s Battalion. Shortly after this Smith’s Fourth
Tennessee Regiment was formed, composed of Smith’s Battalion
and Davis’s Battalion. Immediately after this formation
Wheeler and Forrest were ordered to Fort Donelson, where
Nichol received his first serious wound. He was in all other
engagements until the close of the war, being dangerously
wounded at Bentonville, N. C., the last general engagement
of the war. He surrendered at Greensboro, N. C., with Gen.
Joseph E. Johnston’s army, and was paroled at Charlotte,
N. C., April 26, 1865.

When Colonel Smith returned, on exchange, from Johnson’s Island Prison, just before the battle of Averyboro, N. C., he at once assumed command of the brigade as senior colonel. Adjt. George B. Guild became his adjutant general, and Capt. J. R. Lester, of Company F, became his inspector general, all of them serving in this capacity till the surrender of the army at Greensboro, N. C., April 26, 1865. The coming of Colonel Smith created a scene of rejoicing with the Regiment, as it had created one of pronounced sorrow when he had been captured. The men pressed around him to show him the joy and pleasure it afforded. He was called upon to make a talk, when he expressed to them the pleasure it gave him to be with them again after his long, weary, and dark night as a prisoner in a Northern fortress. He said the saddest part of it was that he missed many familiar faces who were camping to-day on Fame’s battle ground, and but a remnant remained of what they had been; that he had learned from time to time, as other prisoners came in, of the glorious record they were making and had made as soldiers. He expressed his pride in them, and said that their names would be remembered by grateful countrymen. Choking for utterance and in tears, he sat down. A few minutes after this the order was given to mount, and the brigade marched away to take part in the battle of Averyboro, N. C. A very interesting incident occurred before the foregoing took place. The Regiment had learned that his name had been registered for exchange and were expecting him. At the battle of Fayetteville, N. C., a few weeks before, Lieutenant Massengale had been killed, and his horse, which was a most excellent one, a rich bay, evidencing the qualities of a thoroughbred, was in the hands of a relative. It was proposed to purchase the horse for Colonel Smith when he reported, which was done. The men paid the relative $2,600 for the horse, which was christened “Lieut. Joe Massengale” in memory of his gallant rider who was killed upon his back while leading a charge in the fight with Kilpatrick’s forces. Colonel Smith rode this horse in the battles that occurred afterwards and until the surrender. He brought “Joe Massengale” home with him. After this the horse was conspicuous as a part of all the reunions that took place, and was named the regimental mascot, by which name he was called until he died, in his twenty-sixth year.

* * * * *

It has been assumed that the loss of life chargeable to the War between the States was over one million individuals. The number of great battles fought and the deadliness of the conflict are without a parallel in all modern history. In the Dark Ages of the world it frequently transpired that the victors assumed the divine right to massacre the defeated with fire and sword. We had a reminder of what that meant in the march to the sea and in the raids through the valleys of Virginia with a well-defined smell of fire and destruction about them. Truly it has been said that every messenger from the front told of the wreck of a living hope, and every home of both the North and South was made a house of mourning. But my object in giving the following incident is particularly to refute what has sometimes been unjustly said about the Confederate army as a band of slaveholders.

About the beginning of the war there lived in an adjoining county a young farmer who was a substantial, intelligent, and industrious citizen. By his energy he had accumulated means to buy a small hilly farm and erected upon it a plain but neat cottage, where he and his young wife lived. He had no farm help but a younger brother. In the fall of 1861 he and his brother enlisted in the Confederate army. His aged father and mother came to live with the wife, and in a short time the Tennessee regiment to which he and his brother were attached was ordered to the Army of Northern Virginia. The younger brother was killed the day Gen. Bob Hatton fell at Seven Pines, near Richmond, Va., in 1862. The old mother died in a short time after hearing of the death of her baby boy, as she affectionately called him. In 1863 the older brother was desperately wounded at Gettysburg in the charge of Archer’s Tennessee Brigade on Cemetery Hill and taken a prisoner by the enemy. He was reported killed in action by his comrades, and was so reported on the rolls of his company during the remainder of the war. In fact, his leg had been shattered by a cannon ball, and it was hastily amputated above the knee when he was sent to Rock Island Prison. The shock from the wound, exposure, and want of attention impaired his health, making him a patient of the prison hospital until the war ended. His wife, on learning of his death, sickened and died of a broken heart, it is said. The old father, having been left alone, went off to Kentucky to live with a married daughter. Marauding parties burned and destroyed the fences around the little farm, and the house was ruined and broken down. Nothing was left to remind one of the happy home it once had been.

Such was the health of the soldier that he was not discharged from the Rock Island hospital until some three months after the surrender of the Confederate armies, when he was paroled and permitted to return to his home. Upon reaching his home depot, in the first days of September, 1865, good-hearted Tom Day furnished him a horse to go out to his home. We will not attempt to depict his feelings on seeing the devastation that was spread before him upon reaching home. He sought the house of a neighbor, where he was told in sympathetic words the sad, sad story. He had not been able to write himself during his year or more as a prisoner; and confiding it to others, they had failed either willfully or negligently to do so. He listened in a dazed state of mind to the information imparted to him by his friend, but spoke not a word, remaining silent during the evening. As the lengthening shadows of the setting sun grew longer, he arose, saying that he would go down home again. He was asked to wait till morning and take a good night’s rest, to which he gave no heed, hobbling off on his crutches in that direction. He did not return that night, and the next morning at the breakfast table the neighbor announced that he would go down and see if he could hear anything of his friend. On approaching the house, he found the door slightly ajar. Pushing it open, to his horror he beheld the soldier stretched upon the bare floor--dead. He, too, had died of a broken heart. The next day he was buried by a few sorrowing friends by the side of his wife, at the Old Salem Camp Ground, where his rude forefathers sleep.

The wrecks created along its pathway by a state of war are indeterminable. The destruction of property, public and private, is its natural consequence. Nor does its blighting effect end upon the battle field, but drags into its maelstrom of death the innocent, the helpless, and the unprotected. Truly can it be said that war makes countless thousands mourn.

These two young men were a type of the soldiery of which the Confederate armies were composed. They had no particular property rights to fight for; they owned no slaves; they were not personally interested in the slavery question. The doctrine of State rights had been the policy of the government since its existence. The Constitution and the laws made thereunder recognized it, and the Supreme Court of the United States in numerous decisions had sustained them. These were to be set at naught by force of arms, their country invaded, and their people to be subjugated. To prevent this they risked their lives and their all. Rebels they were in the sense that their forefathers had been, but patriots in the cause of freedom and in their efforts to preserve the inalienable rights of the citizen.