George B. Guild

“ I do not think I am exaggerating at all when I say that if a corps of army surgeons had made an examination of my person they would have unanimously reported that I would not be able to move in ten days. Between nine and ten o’clock, all being quiet, I got up and adjusted my clothing, haversack, and pistol, and, taking my shoes in my hand, quietly walked down to my mother’s room, where I was to meet them before leaving. I quietly unbolted the door and walked in. I shall never forget that scene. It remains in my memory yet as a “death watch.” All were weeping with smothered sobbing. ”

“ I have seen, time and again, long rows of dead horses numbering from thirty to one hundred and fifty. Upon taking every mule and horse that the citizens had, they would kill their own, not leaving the citizens as much as a half-dead mule. At night you could tell exactly the position of their army by the light of burning houses, and during the day by the black smoke that hung over their line of march. It was as if there had been a great spring cleaning, and the whole atmosphere was thick with it. Sherman’s line of march was well defined by cinders and burning débris. ”

“ In fact, any meeting of Confederate soldiers would be incomplete without your presence. I would not be extravagant in what I say; but in truth the Southern woman has been the truest, the best, and the most devoted friend the Confederate soldier ever had. During the war she was his ministering angel in the camp, on the march, and in the hospital. She has been the light and sunshine of the desolated home that the war left him. Her sweet words of cheer have smoothed the rugged pathway of life and have guided his footsteps toward prosperity again. ”

“ As imagination paints, we feel that same inspiring emotion which nothing on earth can excite save the busy preparation for battle. As we listen to its roar—the boom of cannon, the crash of musketry, the shouts of advancing columns—we experience the light, airy feeling, twitching of the nerves, and restless expectation that an impending conflict alone can produce, and feel that we breathe an atmosphere high above this earth. ”

“ Do you not think your little army is already crushed and overwhelmed? I sit here day after day thinking and praying for you all and listening to the running of train after train of soldiers from the North, and feel that you cannot withstand such numbers.” I replied: “It is a gloomy outlook, indeed; but my duty as I feel it is to return to my comrades, to share whatever fate may befall them.” ”

“ 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 ”

“ The first and greatest object of a general is to crush and destroy all armed opposition to constituted authority. Why, then, was it that Sherman did not turn and follow Hood into Middle Tennessee when he and Thomas, who had a large army at Nashville, could have crushed the little army of General Hood, as it were, between the upper and nether millstones and thus end the war—anyhow in the Middle West? ”

“ We contend that no army of equal numbers ever fought so many battles in so brief a period or suffered such tremendous losses. One man in every three who wore the Confederate uniform died on the battle field or from wounds received in conflict or in the hospital. History details no account of such a vast percentage of mortality or such tremendous sacrifices. These losses proclaim the incontestable valor of the Confederate soldiers, and no people who ever engaged in war inflicted upon their enemy such vast damage and injury. ”

“ General Braxton Bragg was seemingly a cold, austere officer and a thorough disciplinarian, but no one ever doubted his bravery and patriotism. The greatest battles fought by the Army of Tennessee were fought while he was commander in chief. His plans and orders for battle could not be excelled in their clocklike accuracy. Every soldier knew that when Bragg got ready to fight it was to be a real fight, and some one was sure to be hurt before it was over. He was particularly unfortunate in the failure of his officers in obeying important orders. ”

“ We are standing to-day on the exact spot in the old field near Glass Mill where we dismounted to fight, and from which we advanced to take part in that bloody and hard-fought battle between American soldiers. We feel that we are standing upon consecrated ground, baptized as it has been by the best and purest blood that ever pulsated in human veins. It was here, amid the smoke of battle, that the forms of personal friends and comrades faded from our sight and we beheld them no more. ”

“ Troops from all the States, both North and South, participated in the battle of Chickamauga. Most of them have erected imposing monuments to their respective soldiers. A forest of monumental spires is to be seen in any direction one may travel over the great field of battle, every one of which, as it lifts its tall shaft to the skies, tells of the soldiers who fought there, whether they wore the blue or the gray.
As I have said before, the Confederate armies never enlisted more than six hundred thousand soldiers from first to last. ”

“ The battle of Perryville was fought on the 8th of October, 1862; and the pursuit was kept up as far as London, in Eastern Kentucky, which our rear reached about the last day of October. It was on this retreat that I became well acquainted with Colonel Wheeler and found him to be a thorough soldier. As gentle as a woman and as chivalrous as a cavalier of the olden time, he possessed the finest courage, and could generally be found with the rear guard as the enemy advanced, personally seeing that nothing was omitted necessary to check the enemy’s advance. ”

“ Paul Anderson was in command of the Fourth Tennessee, which was on the right of the brigade. We moved in column down the road leading to the river and, fording the stream near the mill, formed a line of battle in regular infantry style in the edge of low, level beech woods, and, placing our skirmishers a short distance in front, advanced through the woods. The enemy knew that we were coming and kept up an incessant shelling of the woods, some of our men being injured by limbs of trees torn off by the cannon balls. ”

“ I see around me some of the surviving veterans of these two noble companies, battle-scarred, limbless, with the honors of war thick upon their persons; and it is well and proper that we should meet here amid friends and relatives of such men, to clasp again the friendly hand and open to each other the warm hearts of comrades while we talk of battles lost and won and renew that attachment for each other that germinated and ripened amid scenes that unmistakably told what stuff men are made of. ”

“ Hundreds of brave men of both armies were buried here in their blankets, and hardly a sign seems to mark their resting place. But the name and fame of Chickamauga will live in history as long as Lookout lifts its rocky ribs to the skies or the river of death winds its way to the sea. ”

“ Headquarters Cavalry Corps, April 28, 1865.
Gallant Comrades: You have fought your fight; your task is done. During a four years’ fight for liberty you have exhibited courage, fortitude, and devotion; you are the victors of more than two hundred strongly contested fields; you have participated in more than a thousand conflicts of arms; you are heroes, victors, and patriots; the bones of your comrades mark the battle fields upon the soil of Kentucky, Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and Virginia; you have done all that human exertion could accomplish. ”

“ Soldiers are rushed upon battle fields and rushed away, leaving a desire to visit them again. It was just twenty-four years ago and the same hour of the day when I last saw this field where Harrison’s Brigade made their fight, yet many things are true to the impressions left; and what a rush of buried memories are resurrected! The old mill where we crossed the Chickamauga looks the same. The woodman’s ax has leveled the dense beech grove on the north side through which we moved to the attack. ”

“ Every surviving member of the Regiment knows that they were as valiant in battle as their comrades of the other companies. It is their misfortune that none are left to testify for them.
The greater part of the companies in the Fourth Tennessee Cavalry Regiment had on their rolls as soldiers from 125 to 130 names. None of them at any one time had so many, but enlisted that many during the service. The nature of the service of a cavalryman carries him to different and distant parts of the country, giving him the opportunity to collect and bring to the company not only absentees, but recruits. ”

“ During the seventy days’ fighting and moving from position to position it is a remarkable fact that no ammunitions or provisions of any description were lost, except some siege guns that were left at Resaca, having no transportation for their removal. The morale of the army was not impaired in any particular, and its movements were executed with the precision of a dress parade. No commander could have possessed to a greater degree the supreme confidence of his men, and no general rested more securely upon the courage of his soldiers. ”

“ It is not within my province to speak at length of the soldiers—old and young, rich and poor—that crowded into the ranks of the Confederate armies. Tennessee furnished one hundred and eighteen regiments—about one hundred thousand soldiers, nearly one-sixth of the entire Confederate force. Many counties had more soldiers in the army than their voting population. For four years upon hundreds of battle fields they helped maintain the unequal contest. With resources exhausted and their armies depleted to skeletons, they lost all save honor. ”

“ Joseph E. Johnston in North Carolina, a large proportion of Tennesseeans answered to roll call, participated in the unequal battle at Bentonville, and surrendered at Greensboro.
Nor would we forget to mention in this connection the brave sons of Tennessee who fought in the Army of Virginia, who fought at Manassas under Stonewall Jackson, at Chancellorsville, at Gettysburg, and on other fields, and who, when overwhelmed in numbers, surrendered with Lee at Appomattox. The glory they so nobly won is a part of the immortal heritage of Tennesseeans. ”

“ The South was an agricultural people. They had contented themselves with the production of the raw material, while they left it to the North to manufacture every article of use, from the smallest to the most important. They had to establish as best they could shops for the manufacture of every accouterment of the soldier and of every munition of war. There were not in the whole South a percussion cap manufactory or powder mill that could fill the cartridge boxes of a regiment of soldiers. ”

“ The Confederate armies at Gettysburg and Chickamauga on the two occasions had reached the zenith of their strength and enthusiasm. General Johnston, upon assuming command, soon exhibited his great ability as an organizer, in which he had no superior; and it was but a little while till all of his departments put on a cheery appearance, and, what is better, the morale of his soldiers showed confidence and enthusiasm again. Men and horses were well supplied with good, substantial rations—not dainty food, for it could not be had. ”

“ I would add that the Confederate cavalry were nothing more than mounted infantry; for in many of the hardest battles they were dismounted and fought as infantry, leaving their horses in the hands of the fourth man, which, of course, reduced their strength in battle one-fourth. The dismounted men were left in charge of one or two commissioned officers, and were expected to stand at a safe and close-up position. To be a horse holder was not always safe, for to destroy or stampede the horse holders was a special object of the enemy. ”