- Joined
- Aug 9, 2011
- Location
- Lockhart, Texas
I'm just beginning to work on my newest Civil War writing effort. It is a historical fiction novel about the 17th Texas Infantry that fought in Arkansas and Louisiana in the Trans Mississippi Department. The 17th was in General Henry McCulloch's brigade in General Walker's all-Texas Division—Walker's Greyhounds--and Company K of the 17th was comprised of men from Lockhart in Caldwell County—my hometown.
In May of '63, Walker's whole division was loaded onto 14 transport riverboats and were steaming down the Ouachita River in central Louisiana.
In the "you can't make this stuff up" department, one of the first anecdotes I read in a primary account of a soldier in McCulloch's brigade goes like this:
A messenger on the riverbank from General Taylor hailed the lead boat and told General Walker that 4 Yankee ironclad gunboats were steaming upriver towards the convoy. Walker ordered an immediate "about ship."
Lt. Col Philpott, commanding the 12th Texas Infantry was so concerned that his transport ship might be overtaken that he ordered his men to empty their haversacks of the three-day ration of raw bacon that they'd just been issued. The bacon went into the furnace to raise more steam in the boiler to speed up the boat. It worked, but when the bacon all burned up, the vessel slowed. So Col. Philpott ordered the greasy canvas haversacks themselves be collected and tossed in the furnace. More heat, more steam, more speed for a while.
The Yankee gunboats never caught the convoy of transports, even those steamships where they had not not burned the bacon. But I suppose the men of the 12th Texas went hungry for the next day or two.
The story came from one J. Blessington, "The Campaigns of Walker's Division By a Private Soldier," published in 1875. I bought a reprint copy very inexpensively online.
In May of '63, Walker's whole division was loaded onto 14 transport riverboats and were steaming down the Ouachita River in central Louisiana.
In the "you can't make this stuff up" department, one of the first anecdotes I read in a primary account of a soldier in McCulloch's brigade goes like this:
A messenger on the riverbank from General Taylor hailed the lead boat and told General Walker that 4 Yankee ironclad gunboats were steaming upriver towards the convoy. Walker ordered an immediate "about ship."
Lt. Col Philpott, commanding the 12th Texas Infantry was so concerned that his transport ship might be overtaken that he ordered his men to empty their haversacks of the three-day ration of raw bacon that they'd just been issued. The bacon went into the furnace to raise more steam in the boiler to speed up the boat. It worked, but when the bacon all burned up, the vessel slowed. So Col. Philpott ordered the greasy canvas haversacks themselves be collected and tossed in the furnace. More heat, more steam, more speed for a while.
The Yankee gunboats never caught the convoy of transports, even those steamships where they had not not burned the bacon. But I suppose the men of the 12th Texas went hungry for the next day or two.
The story came from one J. Blessington, "The Campaigns of Walker's Division By a Private Soldier," published in 1875. I bought a reprint copy very inexpensively online.
Forum Host
Bringing the