BOONE, IOWA. FRIDAY MORNING, MAY 24, 1912

CHAPTER VIII

We remained at Selma but a few days and then returned to near Dalton, Georgia.

I had another trip, I think it was somewhere on our retreat from Dalton to Atlanta, that I was sent out with six men, down on a railroad, I do not remember what road it was, to see if we could find out what the Yankees were doing. We went about eight or ten miles and were walking leisurely along when the first thing that attracted my attention was the soldiers that were with me cocking their guns. They were a little behind me and as I looked around I saw a Yankee officer about twenty-five yards away coming in the road behind us. I told the men not to shoot and the officer came walking up to us very unconcerned and I commenced to question him. I asked him what he was doing there by himself and he said he was lost from his command, that he was a lieutenant in some regiment I don’t remember now. I told him he could consider himself a prisoner and he handed me his sword and he had a bottle of liquor and I confiscated that as I needed it in my business. About that time we looked down the road, and saw a squad of Yankee cavalry ride out and we went back from the road about seventy-five yards and made a bee line back the way we had come, with our Yankee in front on a trot. We ran about three quarters of a mile and halted and I went to the edge of railroad to see how things looked. I saw a lot of Yankees at the place we had just left and we started again at a faster gait than ever. I stopped and looked again after going about the same distance but saw no more of them so I took my man to headquarters and handed him over to the proper authorities and never saw him again. He ???? as he had taken on too much liquor which was the cause of his being lost.

Once more we are back to the Chattahoochie. After our young Yankee got across the river all right we staid there doing picket duty for several days, talking and having a good time generally. I remember on one occasion I had a newspaper and was sitting in a square place that had been cut down to get to our pontoons when I looked across and saw a Yankee. We had orders to fire at everything in sight that day. I would wave the paper and he would run a little ways and stop, then I would wave the paper and he would run again, then some of our soldiers up the river opened fire on him and if ever a Yankee run, he did, and got back all right. I never thought I treated him wrong. Our officers inquired about it and knew that somebody had done something to cause him to run down toward where I was, but they never found out what it was.

The relief would come on of evenings and each side would tell the other side to hunt their holes until they found out what the orders were. If everything was O.K. we would come out from our holes and be as friendly as ever. If not we whacked away at each other the best we knew how.

We remained here several days and fell back in front of Atlanta where we threw up breastworks. We had quite a lot of Georgia militia and would put them in the front breastworks to relieve the old soldiers. It seemed that each mess of them had a negro servant to cook. I remember seeing the negroes go to the front with cooked rations and some of them would hold a frying pan in front of their heads to keep the minie balls from puncturing their heads.

I was acting Sergeant Major and had to get up the picket force for each evening. One evening while the pickets were coming in to be sent out a Yankee battery sent a shell right over among us. It exploded not over twenty-five feet in front of us and broke the thigh of one man and tore the flesh from the calf of the leg of another. I tore the suspenders off each one and put around their legs, put a stick in it and twisted it to stop the flow of blood. A piece of the shell struck a stake that was stuck up in breastworks and a splinter struck me on the arm. I was afraid to look at it for fear my arm was gone. One of the men died that night and the other some time afterward at the hospital.

We got short of lead here and the officers employed the soldiers to pick up balls that were scattered in the rear where the Yankees had fired at our pickets.

I was on picket here one night and just before daylight we believed the Yankees had left our front. Another soldier and myself started out to see if it was so. We would walk a little distance and listen, then go on a little further and listen again. We kept on this way until we got to their breastworks and they were sure enough gone. We got to their works about the break of day and looked around a while to see if any stragglers were left, but everybody was gone.

On going back to our picket post I saw more signs of shooting than I ever saw before. Between the picket posts the bullets had cut down saplings as large as a man’s leg, it would lodge and then be cut in two again and if the limbs and brush had been thrown out of the way a team and wagon could have been driven through the woods anywhere. After I returned to my regiment that morning I reported what I had seen and we commenced to get out of there and change our position. I believe we went out on the east side of town. We had a large cannon on a handcar and one day our regiment was in front of it about a hundred yards, when it was fired and the shell went right over us, it made a noise like a turkey flying, landed over in Yankeedom and exploded. It shook things up in great shape. It was reported that one shell killed nearly a whole company. There was only one discharge of the gun while we were in front of it. A piece of the band around the bomb broke off and killed a lieutenant in our regiment. We were moved somewhere else after that.

I well remember the night Sherman threw shells into the city. I was lying down and could see the fuses burning and hear the shells burst in town and we could hear the fire department out putting out fires. Most every family in town lived underground and one could see the stovepipes protruding from the ground. The shells from Sherman’s batteries had been falling in the city for some time and “bomb proofs” were all over the city.