Four Years in the Stonewall Brigade (Illustrated) (eBook)

John Casler (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2018
452 Seiten
Charles River Editors (Verlag)
978-1-5312-9103-7 (ISBN)

Infos

Four Years in the Stonewall Brigade are the recollections of notorious Confederate soldier John O. Casler.Casler was arrested five times during the Civil War, and infamous for robbery during the Battle of Gettysburg. The original illustrations are included.

Textauszug

II.

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I WAS BORN IN GAINSBORO, Frederick County, Virginia, nine miles northwest of Winchester, on the first day of December, 1838. My mother’s maiden name was Heironimus, an old family of that county, dating back of the Revolutionary war. When I was three years old my father removed to Springfield, Hampshire County (in what is now West Virginia), an adjoining county, where I spent my boyhood days as most other boys do, in learning a trade and going to school, where I received a fair English education for those days.”

In March, 1859, when I was in my 21st year, I cut loose from the parental roof and took Horace Greeley’s advice to “Go West and grow up with the country.” I landed in Cass County, Missouri, in which state I remained, living in different counties, until the spring of 1861, when the signs of the times indicated war, and I concluded to go back to old Virginia. I left Sedalia, Mo., the 8th day of April, 1861, and returned to Frederick County, Virginia, where my father was engaged in farming, having moved back to that county during my absence.

After leaving Sedalia I went to St. Louis, and there got on board a steamboat bound for Pittsburg, Pa. After passing Cairo, Ill., we heard of the firing on Fort Sumter, and saw bills posted at the different towns we passed calling for 75,000 troops for ninety days to protect Washington and put down the rebellion. Then we knew that war had commenced.

Various opinions were indulged in by the passengers, some saying that the North did not need that many troops, and that it would all be settled in less than ninety days. But, alas! vain hope! How little we knew of the struggle that was before us. I parted with my fellow passengers at Parkersburg, W. Va. Some were going into the Union army, and some of us into the Southern army.

I arrived at home and remained there a short time. At that time the Governor of Virginia was calling for volunteers. There had been a company raised at Springfield, my native town, and they were in service and camped at Blue’s Gap, fifteen miles east of Romney, on the road leading to Winchester. As I had but fifteen miles to go to reach them, I bade farewell to my parents and sisters and went to the company, and arrived that evening in camp.

I met old schoolmates and acquaintances whom I had parted from two years before in the school room, and now found them in arms. I signed my name to the muster-roll, put on the uniform of gray, and was mustered into service for one year. The name of the company was “Potomac Guards,” Captain P. T. Grace, commanding; S. D. Long, First Lieutenant; Jacob N. Buzzard, Second Lieutenant; William Johnson, Third Lieutenant. There was another company camped at that place, the “Hampshire Riflemen,” Captain George Sheetz. They were doing picket duty, not having yet been assigned to any regiment.

The next morning, which was the 19th of June, we were ordered to fall in, and marched to Romney. The day was hot and the road dusty, and marching went quite hard with us, especially myself, who had never marched a day in my life; but I kept in ranks, for, “Who would not a soldier be, and with the soldiers march?” Arriving in Romney about 3 p. m., we quartered in an old building, took a good wash, had some refreshments, and felt like soldiers indeed, with our clothes covered with brass buttons and the ladies smiling at us and cheering us on.

In the early part of June Colonel A. C. Cummings, who had seen service in the Mexican war, and whose home was at Abington, Va., was commissioned Colonel by the Governor of Virginia, and sent from Harper’s Ferry to Romney to collect together the different companies organizing in that and adjacent counties and form a regiment. He had been there but a few days, and had three companies—the Potomac Guards, from Springfield; the Hampshire Riflemen, from New Creek, and the Independent Greys, from Moorefield, Hardy County. The Riflemen were organized before the war, and were well equipped. The other two companies came there with nothing but their uniforms, but were given old, altered muskets and old flintlock rifles that had been sent there from Harper’s Ferry, and two four-pound cannon that had been sent there during the John Brown raid, but had no one to use them. They had a few rounds of ammunition in their coat pockets; no tents, cartridge boxes, or any other equipment.

In order that the reader may more fully understand the organization of the Southern army, I will explain:

The maximum number of a company was one hundred men, commanded by a Captain and three Lieutenants, commissioned officers; then there were Sergeants and Corporals, non-commissioned officers, appointed by the Captain.

A regiment was composed of ten companies, making one thousand men. Sometimes there were less, and often a regiment was reduced to two or three hundred able for service,

The field officers of a regiment were a Colonel, Lieutenant Colonel and Major. Two or more regiments composed a brigade, generally four or five regiments—sometimes more, sometimes less, according to circumstances—and commanded by a Brigadier General.

Two or more brigades (generally four) composed a division, commanded by a Major General; two or more divisions (generally three) composed an army corps, commanded by a Lieutenant General, who was styled a full General. General R. E. Lee ranked as such. There were five full Generals in the Southern army.

Several companies banded together—less than ten—was called a battalion, and commanded by a Major. Two companies of cavalry formed a squadron. A company of artillery had four or six cannon, generally four, and one piece was called a section; going into action and unlimbering ready for business was called going into battery.

The Federals were camped at New Creek, about twenty miles from Romney, and sent a regiment over one morning to capture the whole outfit, and they would have succeeded had it not been for a citizen on the road coming a near way and giving the Colonel warning. The consequence was the Colonel beat a hasty retreat, taking everything with him.

Talk about your first big battles of the war, that was one of them. There were about a dozen shots exchanged, no one hurt and no one captured, the Southern boys pulling out for Winchester and the Federals coming into town. They remained about an hour, and then went back to New Creek—both armies marching from each other all day. As a result, three regiments under Colonel A. P. Hill were sent there from Harper’s Ferry: the 10th Virginia, 13th Virginia, and 3d Tennessee.

When our companies arrived we found those regiments there. Our three companies were then formed into a battalion and put in command of Major William Lee, and called Lee’s Battalion—Colonel Cummings going back to Winchester to recruit more companies.

We remained there until the 24th, expecting an attack every night, and consequently had plenty of false alarms. We then marched back to Winchester, a distance of forty-five miles, leaving some cavalry there under command of Captain Turner Ashby.

As we marched out of town the brass bands were playing, the drums beating, colors flying, and the fair ladies waving their handkerchiefs and cheering us on to “victory or death.” Oh! how nice to be a soldier!

On the 27th we went into camp on Opequon creek, three miles south of Winchester, remaining several days, cleaning arms, drilling, etc. Our next move was to the Shawnee Springs, in the suburbs of Winchester, where we were temporarily attached to General Elzey’s Brigade. The Hampshire Riflemen, not numbering enough (only forty-five) to be mustered in, were transferred to the cavalry and ordered back to Romney to recruit and get horses. How I wished then that I had joined that company, and could have done so only a short time before, but my name was down on the roll, and there was no chance to get it off honorably. I therefore had to remain in the infantry.

General Elzey was quite fond of a dram, as most soldiers are, and one night when he and his staff were drinking quite freely, and feeling very liberal, he called in the sentinel who was on guard at his quarters and gave him a drink, and then went to bed. Now, when this same sentinel was on post again, about daylight, he put his head in the tent door, and, finding the General still asleep, woke him up by exclaiming: “General! General! ain’t it about time for us to take another drink?”

The General roused up, and, not being in as merry a mood as the night before, ordered him to be taken off to the guardhouse for his insolence.

That soldier was greeted for months afterwards by the whole command by, “General, General, ain’t it about time for us to take another drink?”

The Federal General Patterson had crossed the Potomac with a considerable force. Our army, under General Joseph E. Johnston, had evacuated Harper’s Ferry, and the two armies were close together below Martinsburg. One day our advance had a considerable skirmish with the enemy and captured forty-five prisoners, and then fell back south of town to Darksville, where our whole force lay in line of battle. They were the first prisoners I had seen. As we were ordered to tear down all fences, it looked like a battle was imminent. We lay in line the next day, which was the 4th of July, but still no fight, and on the 5th we returned to Winchester and went into camp at the “Shawnee Springs.”

The boys were...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 22.3.2018
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Sachbuch/Ratgeber ► Geschichte / Politik ► 20. Jahrhundert bis 1945
• Themenwelt: Geisteswissenschaften ► Geschichte ► Regional- / Ländergeschichte
• Themenwelt: Geschichte ► Teilgebiete der Geschichte ► Militärgeschichte
• Schlagworte: Gettysburg • oklahoman • quantrill • Virginia
• ISBN-10: 1-5312-9103-1 / 1531291031
• ISBN-13: 978-1-5312-9103-7 / 9781531291037