- Joined
- Sep 2, 2019
- Location
- Raleigh, North Carolina
I just finished reading the memoirs of Sgt Berry G. Benson (1st SC), and noted these remembrances from the winter of 1862-1863, when Benson's unit was assigned picket duty several miles downstream from Fredericksburg:
"We picketed the Rappahannock at Moss Neck Church, one's turn to picket coming every few days, 24 hours being the term. We became quite friendly with the enemy's pickets posted on the opposite side, and used to talk with them and exchange newspapers. The exchange was made by taking a piece of board or bark, fixing a stick upright in it as a mast, with the paper attached to this as a sail. By setting the sail properly, the wind would carry it across from one side to the other, as it was wanted to go. Once a Federal band came down the river and played 'Dixie.' We cheered them vociferously, of course. Then it played 'Yankee Doodle,' and the enemy cheered. Then 'Home, Sweet Home,' and the cheer went up loud and long from both sides of the river."
(Berry G. Benson; Susan Williams Benson, ed. Berry Benson's Civil War Book: Memoirs of a Confederate Scout and Sharpshooter. Athens and London: University of Georgia Press. 1991. Page 35.)
(Photo: Berry Benson. Photographic History of the Civil War, 1911. Via Wikimedia Commons.)
Roy B.
(Berry G. Benson; Susan Williams Benson, ed. Berry Benson's Civil War Book: Memoirs of a Confederate Scout and Sharpshooter. Athens and London: University of Georgia Press. 1991. Page 35.)
(Photo: Berry Benson. Photographic History of the Civil War, 1911. Via Wikimedia Commons.)
Roy B.