Southern Historical Society Papers.
Vol. XXXI. Richmond, Va., January-December. 1903.
Recollections Of Army Life With General Lee.
By FRANK H. FOOTE.
[From the New Orleans Picayune, September 20, 1903.]
In chronicling the events of the late war, many points in regard to campaigns, battles and adventures have been ably touched upon by active participants in the armies of the Confederate States, but how the Southern soldier lived and contrived for partial comfort in the last twelve months of the Confederacy's existence has not as yet been touched upon in small details which show the actual state of hardship he had to endure.
The most vulnerable point of the private soldier was his stomach. He managed to get along very well in rags and tatters, half shoeless, if necessary; but with a pinched stomach many as brave and true soldiers as the world ever produced felt their love and cause of country gradually succumb to the cravings of hearty digestive organs, their patriotism taxed, and in evil, disgraceful hour they left their standards, turned their backs upon comrades and past glories, and singly or in bodies went over to the enemy. Many of these men enlisted in the Federal army as teamsters, or stipulated to fight the Indians in the far West. Whilst they would desert their cause in its extremity, they were honorable (?) enough not to fire upon their former comrades.
Writing from a personal knowledge, those who left us were mainly of foreign birth, though many of our foreign-born comrades remained as true as steel to their adopted government.
The principal cause of this great and disturbing evil was the Commissary Department, as managed. Just where the fault lay is hard to divine--whether with the department in general, or with the wretched railway and other transportation facilities, or all combined, is not germane to this now, but the fact is potent that the line did thus suffer, and in suffering, the cause collapsed. All the arts and resources of the North in men and war material never affected the private soldier of the line as did the lack of his rations. To him the sounds of strife brought visions of full haversacks, warm clothing, shoes and blankets when the field was won. Often in the thickest of the fray it was not uncommon to see the soldier grasp a haversack from the ground or displace it from a dead enemy, and quickly swing it to his shoulder, and its contents shared with others at the close of the action if he survived.
As to how we lived, i. e., eked out an existence on scant grub, I will try to pen in detail. Three years of warfare, notwithstanding the many brilliant but barren victories that perched upon the battle-flags of the Confederacy, had well-nigh exhausted the South, both in soldiers and supplies. Of the depleted ranks we speak not, for the disciplined armies yielded only to physical causes, not force. Active Federal cavalry had curtailed the resources of the South to a great extent. Its granaries in the Shenandoah Valley, Tennessee and Georgia were overrun and devastated. The torch completed what was not consumed, and barns, vehicles and implements were destroyed, so as to prevent even an attempt at a crop. The boast was made that over some of its sections "a crow could not fly without carrying rations." Dilapidated railways and wheezy steamboats that presaged death and disaster, were inadequate to supply the demand of the armies and trade When a railroad was badly damaged, it was seldom repaired, for we had not the material to repair it with, and, for sake of protection, governmental restrictions were thrown around them, limiting the speed to ten or twelve miles only per hour, and it took a nervy crew, indeed, to run a steamboat on Southern inland waters.
In the month of August, 1864, I came on furlough from the front at Petersburg, Va., passing through North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi, walking many, many miles as the trains were then in Georgia, laden with the wounded from the front of Sherman. A survey of the country in North Carolina, as glimpsed from the railroad, showed nothing but pine wastes and resin piled at rotten depots.
The nearness of North Carolina to Lee's army had well-nigh exhausted its resources. South Carolina, being more remote, and naturally then a richer agricultural section, the people more thrifty, or, what is perhaps more to the point, being imbued with a greater degree of secession proclivities, and thereby more interested in maintaining an army, naturally showed more vim and thrift, even with the then shadowing clouds of dire disaster looming up on the horizon. In Georgia much push and stir was evidenced. Abundant crops greeted the eye, and all along the line of railway to Demopolis, on the Tombigbee, the same cheering features existed. On both banks of the Tombigbee vast heaps of corn, racked and cribbed, were to be seen. I wondered at the sight of so much provender for man and beast exposed to wind and weather, and rotting daily in the summer sun. These were neighborhood collections of "tax in kind," a necessary feature of the Confederacy. These immense piles of corn, if speedily transported to the front, would have given new lease of life to our troops and restored the wasted strength of our animals, but we had no transportation facilities. Cotton was scarcely cultivated, except in the remote districts free from raids of Federal cavalry, and even of our own troops, who generally, under orders, burned all they could find. Field peas, sweet potatoes, peanuts and melons varied the aspect of the fields, and I longed for peace, sweet peace, to come, so that I, too, could once more enjoy the bountiful harvest that looked so tempting. Here I bought a small watermelon for a one-dollar bill, and thought what a time I would have with it. I even refused, in my selfishness, to divide with a forlorn soldier, and found that, from a long-enforced contraction of the stomach, I could not devour one-half of it, and, in disgust, pitched the remainder to a cow near-by.
After this digression that gives to some degree an inside view of the Confederacy, I resume the thread of a soldier's life in the trenches. Our enlistment was for the war, and the pay $11 per month, board and bedding free; services, anything your officers said had to be done, from shooting Yankees and getting shot, to starving to death, almost; in a word, to obey any and all orders. This was done with the best grace possible. The events of a gigantic struggle rolled on; shooting and getting shot was endured (when it didn't kill); our wages--at least mine were paid up to October, 1864, for I signed away my pay roll at Augusta, Ga., for clothing--were sometimes paid in Confederate notes, but they had little value. Eloquently it has been said of them: "Worthless as were these 'promises to pay,' they cost more than any tender ever issued by a nation on earth. They were issued in integrity, defended it, valor, and bathed in priceless blood." Our country was--
"Too poor to possess the precious ores,
And too much of a stranger to borrow,
We issued to-day our promise to pay,
And hoped to redeem on the morrow;
But the faith that was in us was strong, indeed,
And our poverty well we discerned;
And this little check represented the pay
That our suffering veterans earned.
We knew it hardly had a value in gold,
Yet as gold each soldier received it;
It gazed into our eyes with a promise to pay,
And each Southern patriot believed it.
But our boys thought little of price or of pay,
Or of bills that were overdue;
We knew that if it brought us our bread to-day,
'Twas the best our poor country could do."
Campaigns waxed hotter and hotter, paymasters became scarcer and scarcer, and the commissariat rapidly followed suit; in fact, evolved itself down to sheer nothing, and in thus contracting, the vitality of the army contracted also. Our rations were reduced to the minimum of one-quarter of a pound of salt meat, or one pound of beef, one pound of flour, or one pint of meal per diem. Coffee and sugar were luxuries, and what little we had was gotten from some victorious field. This we eked out with parched cornmeal and sweetened it sometimes with "long sweetening," i. e., sorghum molasses. This syrup, if used in other form than cooking would work you like a "flywheel." Our flour rations we utilized in its most convenient form for bread, to-wit, "pancake." Having but few cooking utensils, we took turn about in baking. We mixed the batter up in the skillet, or perhaps on a corner of a tent fly, seasoning it with a bit of dirty salt. Our meat was too scarce to fry out any for grease, hence salt and water were the only components of our bread. We did not even have soda. I have seen leached ashes tried as a substitute; except as to color, it was a dismal failure. This form of bread we called "short bread," presumably because it was short of every ingredient necessary for good bread. I have seen the dough wrapped around ramrods and toasted brown; also encased in wet shucks and baked in hot embers.
One campaign we marched far ahead of the wagons, and at night as one of a detail was sent back to cook rations. Were we puzzled? Not a bit. We went to work and made up a big batch of dough on a tent cloth; next we wrenched a wide plank from a neighboring fence, duly cleaned it, and then placed a dozen or so batches of kneaded dough upon the plank, and then gradually inclined the plank so as to catch the full heat of the coals, and there propped it to brown. When sufficiently browned, we turned the cakes over and repeated the process. Thus, by a little ingenuity, we had our bread baked by the time the wagons arrived with the camp utensils, and all we had to do was to boil the beef and distribute the rations.
The latter part of the war we had no hard tack, flour and meal being issued dry. This did well enough in camp, but on the march we frequently lost it by rain. When we had hard tack--a form of bread baked very hard and dry, and issued as part of rations--and later on stale light bread, we knew how to utilize them to the best advantage. We would break it into bits, put it into a cup of water, season with a pinch of salt and wee bit of meat, and then boil it "tender." The boiling increased the quantity of the mess, apparently, and when done we enjoyed this dish, the soldiers' friend, surnamed "cush." I lately saw some soldier lines dedicated to this dish, the author evidently having often made of it a substantial meal. With meal, good, bad or indifferent, we had our bane when the march came with three days' rations. In camp we made flapjacks or mush, and parched some of it for coffee. When cooked into pones, it readily mildewed and soured; besides, it was bulky and bothered one no little to carry along with other camp accoutrements. Even if soured, we, perforce, had to use it best we may, for it was "our all in all." In winter quarters of 1864-'65 we had brigade bake ovens, and light bread was issued in lieu of flour. For awhile we enjoyed it, but as soon as it became stale we tired of it as a nuisance, and preferred our one pound of flour. Three loaves of this bread, weighing nearly two pounds each, issued to a soldier on the eve of a march down the Weldon railroad, or across the country to head a cavalry raid, was a positive burden and nuisance. Not having knapsacks and haversacks that would turn snow or sleet, it would get wet, then musty and unfit to eat. I have seen soldiers leaving camp with one loaf in the knapsack and one in the haversack, whilst the third one was spitted on a fixed bayonet, ready for use when wanted. Salt meat, when issued, was generally used raw as more economical. One pound of beef, poor, skinny, onion-flavored stuff, was poor rations, but we made out on it. We utilized the butcher pens to the fullest extent. The head, feet, liver, hoofs, sweetbreads and even the melt were eagerly sought for, and bought if not purloined, and the possessor envied his happy lot. The feet were boiled to pieces, picked clear of bones, strained through a rough, improvised sieve, then seasoned, mixed with flour and fried with tallow. We thought "cow hoofs" were a delicacy indeed. On several occasions extract of beef in large twelve-pound cans was issued as rations. One spoonful three times a day was issued. We found it pleasant and wholesome, added to flour paste and cooked.
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