NO SURRENDER!!

1865

Anderson's Brigade was a portion of Wheeler's forces that hung on Sherman's right flank and opposed to Osterhous' corps, with which it had daily encounters from the neighborhood of Macon, Georgia, and with the portion of our cavalry that opposed, in the trenches, the entrance of Sherman's forces into the city of Savannah; and was with the remnant under General Hardee had gathered for its defense, when he retired across the Savannah River on the pontoon bridge into South Carolina. Wheeler's heaviest and most desperate fighting was in the three engagements had in the vicinity of Waynesboro, Ga., some 30 miles South of Augusta, on the road to Savannah. At that point, Sherman diverted Kilpatrick and a corps of infantry to march upon Augusta to destroy the Confederate arsenal there, the cotton mills, the thousands of bales of cotton and, most important of all, the long bridge over the Savannah. Wheeler divided his forces, some holding the front on the Carolina side, the remainder taking position on the Georgia side of the river. Wheeler's headquarters were established near Hardeeville in Beaufort District, S. C. Anderson's Brigade occupying the Smith rice plantations across the river from Savannah, keeping up a line of picket post at a number of landing places on the river.

About the first week in February 1865, Sherman laid his pontoons and began his march Northward through South Carolina, spreading fire, destruction and death as he moved. Wheeler's cavalry was about all that had the semblance of organized force left to oppose him. This was done by destroying bridges, encountering his marauding host on each of the many roads, assailing him on his flanks at every opportunity, limiting the breath of the devastation by picking up or driving back on their main body, his countless foraging parties.

Scarcely had Sherman's army set foot on South Carolina soil when the location of his forces and the routes by which they were advancing could be easily located by the columns of smoke arising from burning dwellings, barns and mills; pillars of smoke by day, pillars of lurid flames by night. By the 10th of February, this besom of destruction had crossed the Edisto River confronted by Wheeler's troopers near Branchville on the line of railroad leading from Augusta, Ga., to Charleston. On that day, Wheeler learned that Sherman had detached practically all his cavalry under General Judson Kilpatrick to march Westward by way of Aiken and Graniteville to seize and destroy Augusta. Gathering a large portion of his cavalry hastily together, by an all night march and fording both forks of the Edisto, Wheeler reached Aiken just at daybreak on February 11th. Kilpatrick had approached to within three miles of the town, encamped and thrown up entrenchments the evening before. Wheeler posted his forces hastily in the from of a V, with the town between their two arms. He threw forward a small regiment Eastward of the town and towards the enemy, with instructions to make as stout a resistance to the enemy's advance without being enveloped, and when near the town on their retreat, to break into precipitate fight.

The ruse worked like a charm, and it was not long until the firing in front indicated that the enemy was rapidly pressing back our decoy regiment. Soon our little regiment came flying back in great disorder, with the enemy in serried columns in hot pursuit. Our decoys, as instructed, fled wildly through the main street of the town. Then the order was given and from the base of the V, a counter-charge was made by the 8th Confederate on one street and 8th Texas on another parallel to it; at the same time, the two wings of the Confederate forces closed in on the enemy's flanks. The enemy being excellently armed with Spencer repeating carbines, made a stubborn resistance, but seeing that they were being crushed, extricated themselves as best they could and were soon in full flight, which continued until they reached their entrenchments of the night before.

The forces were not far from being equal in numbers in this engagement, and it was on account of their superior arms that prevented the practical destruction of the flower of Sherman's cavalry in this well fought engagement. We captured a large number of prisoners, killed and wounded many of the "bluecoats", but lost some of our best men killed, and quite a number wounded. The great straits under which the Confederacy was then contending, and the natural confusion resulting in its final collapse some two months later, resulted in but small notice being taken of this day's battle, which was really one of the most notable and hardly contested purely cavalry engagements of the war, resulting in the defeat for the fourth time, of most determined efforts on Sherman's part of capturing the city of Augusta, its arsenal, so vital to the Confederacy, with its stores of subsistence, its cotton and especially its cotton mills. Each of these four attempts had been frustrated by the dogged and persistent fighting of Wheeler's cavalry, unaided by any other arm or force of the Confederacy. Yet even at this very time, many of those who had known little of the ravages and horrors of the war except from hearsay, were making loud complaints because Wheeler's men from the exigencies of the case were compelled to subsist themselves and their horses as best they could out of the cribs and barns of the people for whom they were fighting, and suffering with a gallantry and heroic devotion as sublime as when they flashed their maiden words, four years before, in repelling the insolent invader of their homes and firesides. Yet, just at this time and evidently for political reasons, the authorities at Richmond promoted Major General Wade Hampton, commanding cavalry in the army of Northern Virginia, to be Lieutenant General and, without a force of his own save Brigadier General K. C. Butler's small Brigade of Cavalry, placed him in command of all the cavalry operating in South Carolina.

The reason assigned for this promotion over Wheeler would have come with better grace had it been true, but it was not, and the promoting authorities knew or should have known that Wheeler ranked Hampton as a Major General by about six months in date of commission. Wheeler, however, did not complain and exerted his authority in suppressing a "Round Robin" from a large number of his officers and men who had served under him since July 1862, and on the battlefields of seven states, to which number the eighth was soon to be added. From the well contested field of Aiken, after a few hours of rest for men and horses, Wheeler struck Northward to Lexington District, South Carolina, where he again encountered Sherman's main army, easily found by the smoke of burning buildings, covering a front of 20 miles. In striking Sherman's left flank we had numerous and almost continuous encounters, in the too great prolonging of one which, Allen's Division, in which Anderson's Brigade was included, came very near being hopelessly enveloped by Sherman's infantry, but fortunately the peril was observed barely in time to enable us by a bold charge to cut our way through the cordon that encircled us. As we were gradually falling back up the Congaree in the direction of Columbia, but still on the Lexington side of the river, Captain Joel W. Matthews, commanding Co. H. of the 8th Confederate, while riding ahead with General Anderson and staff, was shot by a volley delivered from ambuscade, while several horses were also killed and other officers and men wounded. The 8th Confederate, being immediately behind General Anderson, at once charged the ambushing party, capturing some and chasing the remainder back to safety within their infantry lines. An ambulance was improvised for the occasion and Captain Matthews, wounded to his death, was borne on towards Columbia.

Wheeler crossed the Sooluda and Broad rivers just above the Columbia with his cavalry, burning the bridges behind him. Captain Matthews died that night, and the next day the writer, with his squadron, was detailed as his funeral escort. Approaching the cemetery with the squadron mounted, the enemy in plain view across the Congaree opened up on us with a rapid fire of shells. We dismounted and led our horses to the shelter of some buildings and then returned on foot and consigned the gallant young Mississippian to a soldier's grave, while shells from the enemy's artillery were alternately fired at the burial party and the handsome marble capitol of Palmetto State. They did us no harm, but the vandal scars are yet visible on the cornice, frieze and walls of that harmless State House. The Brigade of General Anderson was the rear-guard on the evacuation of Columbia, and rounded up quite a number of stragglers who were found looting stores and commissaries in the city, and as we retired from the city while the process of surrender was in progress, the city certainly was not burning, the only fires started being a warehouse where were stored a large lot of supplies that it was deemed proper not to suffer to fall into the hands of the enemy. This warehouse was not in the remotest connected with the main business portion or the residence section of the city. General Hampton with his escort followed immediately behind us.

We bivouaced several miles from the city about dark. Within an hour after sunset the heavens were lighted up by the blazing city, one of the most beautiful on the continent. So general was the conflagration that our camps several miles away were so well lighted by the fires of the doomed city that a pin on the ground could have been readily seen. From the many mansions whose consuming fires we had been seeing from Savannah Northward marking the vandals invasion, no one in our forces was surprised at the illumination furnished by the fires consuming Columbia. Sherman had said that, "War is Hell", and he had simply usurped the functions of his Satanic Majesty, and organized it on Earth for his own delectation, and the gratification of a malignant heart. General Wade Hampton took command of all the cavalry and a meeting between him and General Wheeler took place near Blackstock, when he had the gallantry to tell General Wheeler to operate his forces according to his own best judgment. The pillars of smoke by day and the pillars of fire by night still marked the more than twenty mile front of the invader until it reached the North Carolina line, and then in great measure ceased for lack of mansions to burn or from a glutted appetite for fire. In charging into and driving the enemy's marauding cavalry from their camps before leaving South Carolina, the crockery, table ware and even the clothing of women and infants, looted from unprotected and destroyed homes, were found scattered around and abandoned in hasty flight from a mere handful of men in arms offering them honorable battle.

On entering North Carolina, Sherman moved his forces Eastward through Anson, Richmond, Cumberland and Hornet Counties towards Goldsboro, on the river Neuse. In the meantime, General Robert E. Lee had been Commander-in-Chief of the Confederate Army and at once recalled General Joseph E. Johnston to the command of the shattered remnant of that splendid army of 45,000 men, from whose command he had been removed in the previous July, to quiet the clamors of unsacred politicians or as a result of personal pride and pique. This remnant had been brought by rail in part to Augusta and then carried by overland marches into North Carolina, and was now assembling South of Raleigh. Still hanging close on to Sherman's front and flanks, Wheeler's troopers, now augmented by General M. C. Butler's Brigade from the Army of Northern Virginia, on the 10th of March attacked at dawn the cavalry camp of General Kilpatrick, captured a large number of his troops, the General's saddle horse and concubine, and released some 600 foot-sore Confederates that had been picked up from General Hardee's forces that had moved Northward from Charleston. Kilpatrick's cavalry were easily discomfited in this engagement, veterans though they were, but a quagmire prevented Hume's Division of Confederates from reaching the enemy, and the infantry camp of the Federals adjoining that of their cavalry furnished a force that compelled the Confederates to withdraw, but they brought safely away their prisoners and released comrades in arms.

Our losses in officers was especially severe, some brigades losing nearly all their field officers by wounds inflicted by the rescuing Federal infantry. At Fayetteville, General Anderson of Allen's Division was again severely wounded while covering our retreat through that town. After this, his brigade was commanded by some Colonel up to the time of the surrender. At Averysboro, a sharp conflict took place between Hardee's infantry supported by a portion of Wheeler's cavalry.

On the 19th, 20th, and 21st of March 1865, was fought the hard contested and sanguinary battle of Bentonville. General Johnston, having gathered the small remnant of his own splendid army of Tennessee, boldly took position on the West Bank of the Neuse River at the hamlet of Bentonville on Sherman's line of march towards Goldsboro. His line of battle was crescent shaped, each wing resting on the river with but a single bridge crossing the unfordable stream in his rear. Before the whole line could be entrenched, the enemy attacked with great vigor, only to meet successive repulses. While the battle was progressing on the 19th and 20th, Wheeler's cavalry was harassing by repeated attacks the approaching columns of the enemy as they were being hurried forward to swell the numbers of the attacking enemy. On the 21st, Wheeler brought all his cavalry to Johnston's battle line as the infantry were too few in number to man the entire line. Our cavalry were almost all dismounted and placed in the entrenchments of the left wing. Anderson's Brigade manned the extreme left entrenchments, but there was a space extending from its left to the river that was not entrenched and was occupied by some cavalry from the Army of Northern Virginia. A portion of Blair's 17th Corps attacked with great vigor the entrenchments occupied by the dismounted cavalry but without success, being repulsed repeatedly. Just as the last of these repulses was suffered, Mower's Division of Blair's Corps was hurled against the cavalry occupying the open woods between the Confederate breastworks and the river. The cavalry line was driven back in confusion towards the only bridge in Johnston's rear, closely followed by the double line of Mower's infantry. General Hardee, with his staff close to the entrenched line of our cavalry, seeing the movement of the enemy and their near approach to the bridge, hastily called up the 8th and 11th Texas and a portion of the 4th Tennessee cavalry that was standing to horse in reserve, and directed them to charge the rapidly advancing enemy, his own son going with the Texans as a volunteer, and at the same time ordered up Cummins' remnant of a brigade of infantry, not exceeding 500 in line.

The Texans moved to the Eastward at a gallop some 300 yards so as to get in the immediate front of the enemy, then formed line to the right and in an impetuous charge, fell upon the enemy with pistols and sabres. Mower's men stopped, but before they could fix bayonets, the cavalry were riding them down. Then the 8th Confederate from behind the entrenchments made a quick move to their left, struck the flank of Mower's Division, and the enemy's whole line in open woods gave way and beat a hasty retreat, with a parting volley from Cummins' men who came up at a double-quick. The charge of the Texas and Tennessee horsemen upon the Federal infantry was one of the most brilliant ever witnessed though it was costly, as many of these gallant troopers were wounded, some killed, and among the Confederate dead was the gallant young son of General Hardee. The 8th Confederate captured a number of prisoners, many of whom were too fresh from Germany to speak or understand English.

The little foot-sore, battle-scarred remnant of the once indomitable Army of Tennessee, under the eye and guiding genius of their much loved Joseph Eggleston Johnston, in the three days battle at Bentonville fought with enthusiastic willingness and performed prodigies of valor as notable as any that marked a battlefield of the Confederacy during its existence.

On the afternoon of the 20th March, General Edmund W. Pettus of Alabama, in a smoke-begrimed roundabout, his sword in his right hand, his bridle reins and a half plug of tobacco in his left, the juice of the weed trickling from each corner of his mouth, led his heroic Brigade against the enemy's breastworks, broke their lines, captured a battery at close quarters and held his position until nightfall. Two companies of the 20th Alabama had penetrated the enemy's lines so far that the enemy closed in behind them, preventing their return, and they closed ranks and, by a night march made a detour of 20 miles and returned to their own lines late the next day. On the morning of the 21st of March, General Johnston withdrew his army across the Neuse safely, the cavalry covering the movement in the face of overwhelming odds. General Johnston stood by the roadside and superintended the withdrawal. As the leading troops caught sight of their chieftain they greeted him with a shout, but by his order it was at once suppressed, and the order "no shouting" was passed down the line. The enemy was in their entrenchments and in hearing. Everything was brought off except the battery captured by Pettus' Brigade, which could not be brought through the swamp behind which it had been posted when captured.

Sherman's army passed on to Goldsboro, where it remained in communication with the Federal fleet until early in April. Johnston took post at Smithfield with his cavalry thrown well out towards Goldsboro busily engaged in suppressing the marauding parties sent out by the enemy and watching the enemy's movements. Sherman having met and conferred with Grant near Petersburg, returned to his army and early in April Grant's army began its movement to crush or drive Lee's army from the lines in front of Richmond and Petersburg. At the same time and by concerted movement, Sherman advanced from Goldsboro on Johnston at Smithfield. Johnston with his little army fell slowly back through Raleigh in the direction of Greensboro, his cavalry covering the movement and retarding, as much as possible, the enemy's advance. Kilpatrick entered Raleigh as Wheeler, bringing up the rear of the army, marched out. About April 10th, Kilpatrick threw forward a strong force to push Wheeler. Allen's Alabamians were faced about and ordered to charge the foe. The action was vigorously taken and the enemy driven, with loss in officers and men killed and captured. The last cannon shot fired by Sherman at Johnston's forces was late in the afternoon of that day, and just after Crew's Georgia Brigade had hurled back Kilpatrick's advance. The enemy had placed a piece of artillery on a hill overlooking an open valley some half mile wide in which Crews had made his charge. General Allen and staff were clustered together at the edge of the wood on an opposite hill. The writer's regiment being close at hand, he had moved up near to where General Allen and staff were located and was exchanging greetings with an old schoolmate and county man belonging to the 51st Alabama. A shot from the enemy's gun aimed at General Allen and staff, fell a few yards short of the target, but the shell bursting gave quite a number of us a copious sprinkling of dust and dirt but did no other harm. No other shot was fired as the movement of one of Crews' regiments caused the gun to limber up and get away. During that night General Wheeler withdrew his forces to near Chapel Hill, formed his lines and awaited events.

On the morning of the 11th, our pickets picked up two Confederate soldiers who said that General Lee had surrendered. Their story was not believed until they exhibited their paroles. On this day negotiations were opened between Johnston and Sherman looking to a surrender of the Army of Tennessee. This was not finally concluded until the 26th of April, the flags of truce in the meantime passing through the advance line occupied by the 8th Confederate with the other regiments of Anderson's Brigade. This Brigade retained its organization to the last, amidst the demoralization and confusion attending the negotiations pending for so many days between the Generals of the opposing armies. Most of Wheeler's Cavalry, under the inspiration of the General himself, refused to stay until the surrender could be consummated, and withdrew in greater or less bodies. The 8th Confederate was on duty and on the line during all this but its discipline of nearly four years was still with it, and to it were issued the last of the paroles given on the field.

The great drama was ended and the curtain rung down, so far as the battle with arms was concerned, to be followed by one, in many respects, of equal intensity and of longer duration for civil existence on native soil. All was lost save honor, which did not fail to abide with every surviving true Confederate soldier. The Army of Tennessee, "like the dew on the mountain", at once dissolved, the officers and men leaving, generally in small squads, seeking home, as far as possible by the less frequented roads in order to better find subsistence by the way; the infantry on foot, and by rail wherever possible, the cavalry and artillerists, by terms of surrender reserving their horses, mounted.

The writer, having had his last and best mount, of a dozen or more ridden during the four years, killed at Bentonville, and being on the horse of a wounded comrade which had to be sent to his home, hurried off, without waiting for a parole, to the brigade quartermaster to secure a mule. He refused under the plea that he had orders from General Anderson to drive his teams to Savannah. He was told that General Anderson (who, by the way, was absent wounded) and his orders were functus officios, and, vi et armis. Some comrades soon had their Captain perched on top of a very tall, very thin but youthful mule. Other dismounted men of the regiment were in like manner provided with mules, to carry them to their distant and devastated homes, from at least two six-mule teams. Those who were present of my own company were each given a silver dollar by another quarter-master, and all hiked homeward, sad but not disheartened, overwhelmed but not cast down, paupers in this world's goods but millionaires in experience, carefully wrapped in a "wallet" of nil desperandum.

Of the regiment, at the surrender in North Carolina, there were present for duty about 250 men, rank and file, including the Lieut. Colonel, two captains and some dozen lieutenants, while there were about 100 with Colonel Wade in Mississippi who were comprehended in the surrender, about the 10th of May, of General Taylor's Department.

Of the losses of the regiment by the casualties of nearly four years service, in the absence of official data, it is impossible to speak with accuracy, but, estimating as nearly as possible from data in hand, of those suffered by one company, fifty per cent would be a low approximation.

The regiment was made up of the early volunteers, augmented from time to time by some who were enrolled in it under the influence of the Conscript Act of 1862, but its recruits were largely made up of very young men who had not attained military age or of older men who had seen duty before this great war. The young were enthusiastic volunteers who soon developed into superb troopers, not a few of whom yielded their young lives on their Southland's altar among the last of its precious sacrifices. Made up of such material desertions were consequently rare; only one from Company "A" and he a substitute and a bastard.

Three of the regiment's Captains were killed in battle, while all others, perhaps save one, had scars for a testimonial that they had met the enemy while following Wheeler's black plume. It is impossible now, after diligent search, to give the names of all the gallant lieutenants who met the "grim reaper" in the thick of the fray, but Staples of Co. B., Winslow of G. and Wallace of I. are now vividly recalled. Company A, as an organization, was handicapped from the first by the high order of its membership.

Before it had completed one year's service and thence on, fully one fourth of its roster was detached, or on detail for, special duty of some kind. Two of its lieutenants; Jasper N. Wade and Belton O. Nabors were special favorites of Brigade, Division and Corps Commanders for perilous scouting service. It furnished two surgeons and all the buglers the regiment ever had. It supplied the regiment with a quarter-master and commissary sergeant, had clerks at brigade and division headquarters, while blacksmiths, couriers and even expert teamsters were drawn from its ranks for regimental or brigade service.

The regiment, while on the last and most exhausting of its many raids; within the enemy's lines from August 10th to the last of September, 1864; lost a number of its devoted troopers whose end was never known; murdered, in all likelihood by the bushwhackers of East Tennessee.

Having no tents after Shiloh for officers or men, save the few "flys" that were captured from the enemy, the consequent exposure brought disease and death to many, while fully 75 per cent of those captured died miserably in northern prisons. After the Murfreesboro campaign, the regiment had but two field officers; the Colonel being in command of brigade or on duty in another department. Its Major never could learn tactics sufficient to move the regiment, while in line, to the front, flank or rear by a proper command; but being a born woodsman and a fearless soldier, was conveniently kept busy leading scouts. Hence the command devolved on its intrepid Lieut. Colonel, John S. Prather, or, in his absence, on one of its captains.

In this connection, digression is made to pay feeble tribute to the 10th Confederate Cavalry Regiment, composed of four companies of Georgians and six of Alabamians. Armed with Enfield rifles, it generally fought in the open field. Lieut. Colonel M. M. Slaughter, of Talladega, had the misfortune to attract bullets in almost every fight he entered and as a result was generally disabled from wounds, but with its superb Major John B. Rudolph, of Lowndes, or its no less accomplished Captain Vason or Holt in command, it could be as safely relied on to do its full duty as Caesar's indomitable tenth legion.

It was my earnest desire before attempting to write this outline history of a regiment so fully identified from beginning to end with the operations and fortunes of the Army of Tennessee, to procure and append full muster rolls of each and all of its ten splendid companies, in order that the name at least of those who had followed its flag might be somewhere preserved to answer the inquiries of those coming after. But alas! Through the lapse of nearly a half century of time, the dispersion of the survivors and the inroads of the "grim reaper", nearly three years of correspondence, with numerous interviews and the searching of records, have resulted in utter failure to obtain a complete roll of the entire membership of a single company aside from my own.

Out of the respect to and strong attachment for the noble band which selected me to share with them their hardships, privations and perils as their Captain, in the full enjoyment of their confidence, esteem and respect through nearly four years of close association, I herewith close the narrative with a muster roll of Company "A", 8th Confederate Cavalry.

Your most humble,

George Miller