Say What? Saturday: Sam Watkins Quote

Andy Cardinal

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20 year-old Sam Watkins enlisted in the "Maury Greys" in April 1861. The "Maury Greys" became Company H, 1st Tennessee. Over the next four years, Watkins and his regiment fought in the battles of Shiloh, Corinth, Perryville, Murfreesboro, Chickamauga, Chattenooga, the Atlanta Campaign, Franklin, Nashville, and many others.

Like many of his fellow soldiers, Sam was full of enthusiasm when he enlisted in the army. As this quote shows, he found the reality of war to be quite different from what he had imagined: "But we soon found out that the glory of war was at home among the ladies and not upon the field of blood and carnage of death, where our comrades were mutilated and torn by shot and shell." When the Army of Tennessee surrendered, only 7 men still alive who had originally enlisted in Company H.

Twenty years after he first enlisted, he began writing about his experiences during the war. The result was Company Aytch: A Sideshow of the Big Show, one of the best memoirs ever written by a veteran of the Civil War -- or of any war, for that matter.
 
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one of the best memoirs ever written by a veteran of the Civil War -- or of any war, for that matter.

I agree. I have read his diary many times. Despite his young age and inexperience of battle in the first few pages, his memoirs penetrate deep into the emotions of a veteran. Thank you for the remembering Sam and his words today.
 
"The death-angel gathers its last harvest."

Kind reader, right here my pen, and courage, and ability fail me.
I shrink from butchery. Would to God I could tear the page from these
memoirs and from my own memory. It is the blackest page in the history
of the war of the Lost Cause. It was the bloodiest battle of modern
times in any war. It was the finishing stroke to the independence of
the Southern Confederacy.

I was there. I saw it. My flesh trembles.
and creeps, and crawls when I think of it today. My heart almost ceases
to beat at the horrid recollection. Would to God that I had never
witnessed such a scene!

I cannot describe it. It beggars description. I will not attempt to
describe it. I could not. The death-angel was there to gather its last
harvest. It was the grand coronation of death. Would that I could turn
the page. But I feel, though I did so, that page would still be there,
teeming with its scenes of horror and blood. I can only tell of what I
saw.

Our regiment was resting in the gap of a range of hills in plain view of
the city of Franklin. We could see the battle-flags of the enemy waving
in the breeze. Our army had been depleted of its strength by a forced
march from Spring Hill, and stragglers lined the road. Our artillery had
not yet come up, and could not be brought into action. Our cavalry was
across Harpeth river, and our army was but in poor condition to make an
assault. While resting on this hillside, I saw a courier dash up to our
commanding general, B. F. Cheatham, and the word, "Attention!" was given.
I knew then that we would soon be in action. Forward, march. We passed
over the hill and through a little skirt of woods.

The enemy were fortified right across the Franklin pike, in the suburbs
of the town. Right here in these woods a detail of skirmishers was
called for. Our regiment was detailed. We deployed as skirmishers,
firing as we advanced on the left of the turnpike road. If I had not
been a skirmisher on that day, I would not have been writing this today,
in the year of our Lord 1882.

It was four o'clock on that dark and dismal December day when the line of
battle was formed, and those devoted heroes were ordered forward, to

"Strike for their altars and their fires
For the green graves of their sires,
For God and their native land."

As they marched on down through an open field toward the rampart of blood
and death, the Federal batteries began to open and mow down and gather
into the garner of death, as brave, and good, and pure spirits as the
world ever saw. The twilight of evening had begun to gather as a
precursor of the coming blackness of midnight darkness that was to
envelop a scene so sickening and horrible that it is impossible for me to
describe it.

"Forward, men," is repeated all along the line. A sheet of
fire was poured into our very faces, and for a moment we halted as if in
despair, as the terrible avalanche of shot and shell laid low those brave
and gallant heroes, whose bleeding wounds attested that the struggle
would be desperate.

Forward, men! The air loaded with death-dealing
missiles. Never on this earth did men fight against such terrible odds.
It seemed that the very elements of heaven and earth were in one mighty
uproar. Forward, men! And the blood spurts in a perfect jet from the
dead and wounded. The earth is red with blood. It runs in streams,
making little rivulets as it flows. Occasionally there was a little lull
in the storm of battle, as the men were loading their guns, and for a few
moments it seemed as if night tried to cover the scene with her mantle.

The death-angel shrieks and laughs and old Father Time is busy with his
sickle, as he gathers in the last harvest of death, crying, More, more,
more! while his rapacious maw is glutted with the slain.

But the skirmish line being deployed out, extending a little wider than
the battle did--passing through a thicket of small locusts, where Brown,
orderly sergeant of Company B, was killed--we advanced on toward the
breastworks, on and on. I had made up my mind to die--felt glorious.

We pressed forward until I heard the terrific roar of battle open on our
right. Cleburne's division was charging their works. I passed on until
I got to their works, and got over on their (the Yankees') side. But in
fifty yards of where I was the scene was lit up by fires that seemed like
hell itself. It appeared to be but one line of streaming fire. Our
troops were upon one side of the breastworks, and the Federals on the
other. I ran up on the line of works, where our men were engaged.

Dead soldiers filled the entrenchments. The firing was kept up until
after midnight, and gradually died out. We passed the night where we
were.

But when the morrow's sun began to light up the eastern sky with
its rosy hues, and we looked over the battlefield, O, my God! what did we
see! It was a grand holocaust of death. Death had held high carnival
there that night. The dead were piled the one on the other all over
the ground. I never was so horrified and appalled in my life.

Horses, like men, had died game on the gory breastworks. General Adams' horse
had his fore feet on one side of the works and his hind feet on the other,
dead. The general seems to have been caught so that he was held to the
horse's back, sitting almost as if living, riddled, and mangled, and torn
with balls. General Cleburne's mare had her fore feet on top of the
works, dead in that position.

General Cleburne's body was pierced with
forty-nine bullets, through and through. General Strahl's horse lay by
the roadside and the general by his side, both dead, and all his staff.
General Gist, a noble and brave cavalier from South Carolina, was lying
with his sword reaching across the breastworks still grasped in his hand
He was lying there dead. All dead! They sleep in the graveyard yonder
at Ashwood, almost in sight of my home, where I am writing today.

They sleep the sleep of the brave. We love and cherish their memory.
They sleep beneath the ivy-mantled walls of St. John's church, where they
expressed a wish to be buried. The private soldier sleeps where he fell,
piled in one mighty heap. Four thousand five hundred privates! all
lying side by side in death! Thirteen generals were killed and wounded.
Four thousand five hundred men slain, all piled and heaped together at
one place. I cannot tell the number of others killed and wounded.

God alone knows that. We'll all find out on the morning of the final
resurrection.

Kind friends, I have attempted in my poor and feeble way to tell you of
this (I can hardly call it) battle. It should be called by some other
name. But, like all other battles, it, too, has gone into history.

I leave it with you. I do not know who was to blame. It lives in the
memory of the poor old Rebel soldier who went through that trying and
terrible ordeal. We shed a tear for the dead.

They are buried and forgotten. We meet no more on earth. But up yonder, beyond the sunset
and the night, away beyond the clouds and tempest, away beyond the stars that ever twinkle
and shine in the blue vault above us, away yonder by the great white throne, and by the river o
f life, where the Almighty and Eternal God sits, surrounded by the angels and archangels and the
redeemed of earth, we will meet again and see those noble and brave
spirits who gave up their lives for their country's cause that night
at Franklin, Tennessee. A life given for one's country is never lost.

It blooms again beyond the grave in a land of beauty and of love.
Hanging around the throne of sapphire and gold, a rich garland awaits the
coming of him who died for his country, and when the horologe of time has
struck its last note upon his dying brow, Justice hands the record of
life to Mercy, and Mercy pleads with Jesus, and God, for his sake,
receives him in his eternal home beyond the skies at last and forever.

Source - Co. Aytch, by Sam R. Watkins
 
Sam Watkins had a way with words ... there are so many rich expressions in the piece you shared @scone, some of which will continue to resonate across the ages, I'm sure.

for a few
moments it seemed as if night tried to cover the scene with her mantle
.
The death-angel shrieks and laughs and old Father Time is busy with his
sickle, as he gathers in the last harvest of death, crying, More, more,
more! while his rapacious maw is glutted with the slain.
O, my God! what did we
see! It was a grand holocaust of death. Death had held high carnival
there that night.
They sleep the sleep of the brave. We love and cherish their memory.
Kind friends, I have attempted in my poor and feeble way to tell you of
this (I can hardly call it) battle. It should be called by some other
name. But, like all other battles, it, too, has gone into history.
I leave it with you. I do not know who was to blame. It lives in the
memory of the poor old Rebel soldier who went through that trying and
terrible ordeal. We shed a tear for the dead.
A life given for one's country is never lost.

It blooms again beyond the grave in a land of beauty and of love.

Those are just some that stood out for me.
 
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