THE outbreak of war found me in the mountains of Georgia, Tennessee, and Alabama, engaged in the development of coal-mines. This does not mean that I was a citizen of three States; but it does mean that I lived so near the lines that my mines were in Georgia, my house in Alabama, and my post-office in Tennessee. The first company of soldiers, therefore, with which I entered the service was composed of stalwart mountaineers from the three States. I had been educated for the bar and for a time practised law in Atlanta. In September, 1854, I had married Miss Fanny Haralson, third daughter of General Hugh A. Haralson, of La Grange, Georgia. The wedding occurred on her seventeenth birthday and when I was but twenty-two. We had two children, both boys. The struggle between devotion to my family on the one hand and duty to my country on the other was most trying to my sensibilities. My spirit had been caught up by the flaming enthusiasm that swept like a prairie-fire through the land, and I hastened to unite with the brave men of the mountains in organizing a company of volunteers. But what was I to do with the girl-wife and the two little boys? The wife and mother was no less taxed in her effort to settle this momentous question. But finally yielding to the promptings of her own heart and to her unerring sense of duty, she ended doubt as to what disposition was to be made of her by announcing that she intended to accompany me to the war, leaving her children with my mother and faithful “Mammy Mary.” I rejoiced at her decision then, and had still greater reasons for rejoicing at it afterward, when I felt through every fiery ordeal the inspiration of her near presence, and had, at need, the infinite comfort of her tender nursing.

The mountaineers did me the honor to elect me their captain. It was the first office I had ever held, and I verily believed it would be the last; for I expected to fight with these men till the war ended or until I should be killed. Our first decision was to mount and go as cavalry. We had not then learned, as we did later, the full meaning of that war-song, “If you want to have a good time, jine the cavalry”; but like most Southerners we were inured to horseback, and all preferred that great arm of the service.

This company of mounted men was organized as soon as a conflict seemed probable and prior to any call for volunteers. They were doomed to a disappointment, “No cavalry now needed” was the laconic and stunning reply to the offer of our services. What was to be done, was the perplexing question. The proposition to wait until mounted men were needed was promptly negatived by the suggestion that we were so far from any point where a battle was likely to occur, and so hidden from view by the surrounding mountains, that we might be forgotten and the war might end before we had a chance.

“Let us dismount and go at once as infantry.” This proposition was carried with a shout and by an almost unanimous vote. My own vote and whatever influence I possessed were given in favor of the suggestion, although my desire for cavalry service had grown to a passion. Accustomed to horseback on my father's plantation from my early childhood, and with an untutored imagination picturing the wild sweep of my chargers upon belching batteries and broken lines of infantry, it was to me, as well as to my men, a sad descent from dashing cavalry to a commonplace company of slow, plodding foot-soldiers. Reluctantly, therefore, we abandoned our horses, and in order certainly to reach the point of action before the war was over, we resolved to go at once to the front as infantry, without waiting for orders, arms, or uniforms. Not a man in the company had the slightest military training, and the captain himself knew very little of military tactics.

The new government that was to be formed had no standing army as a nucleus around which the volunteers could be brought into compact order, with a centre of disciplined and thoroughly drilled soldiery; and the States which were to form it had but few arms, and no artisans or factories to supply them. The old-fashioned squirrel rifles and double-barrelled shot-guns were called into requisition. Governor Joseph E. Brown, of Georgia, put shops in the State to work, making what were called “Joe Brown's pikes.” They were a sort of rude bayonet, or steel lance, fastened, not to guns, but to long poles or handles, and were to be given to men who had no other arms. Of course, few if any of these pikemen ever had occasion to use these warlike implements, which were worthy of the Middle Ages, but those who bore them were as gallant knights as ever levelled a lance in close quarters. I may say that very few bayonets of any kind were actually used in battle, so far as my observation extended. The one line or the other usually gave way under the galling fire of small arms, grape, and canister, before the bayonet could be brought into requisition. The bristling points and the glitter of the bayonets were fearful to look upon as they were levelled in front of a charging line; but they were rarely reddened with blood. The day of the bayonet is passed except for use in hollow squares, or in resisting cavalry charges, or as an implement in constructing light and temporary fortifications. It may still serve a purpose in such emergencies or to impress the soldier's imagination, as the loud-sounding and ludicrous gongs are supposed to stiffen the backs and steady the nerves of the grotesque soldiers of China. Of course, Georgia's able war governor did not contemplate any very serious execution with these pikes; but the volunteers came in such numbers and were so eager for the fray that something had to be done; and this device served its purpose. It at least shows the desperate straits in securing arms to which the South was driven, even after seizing the United States arsenals within the Confederate territory.

The irrepressible humor and ready rustic wit which afterward relieved the tedium of the march and broke the monotony of the camp, and which, like a star in the darkness, seemed to grow more brilliant as the gloom of war grew denser, had already begun to sparkle in the intercourse of the volunteers. A woodsman who was noted as a “crack shot” among his hunting companions felt sure that he was going, to win fame as a select rifleman in the army; for he said that in killing a squirrel he always put the bullet through the head, though the squirrel might be perched at the time on the topmost limb of the tallest tree. An Irishman who had seen service in the Mexican War, and was attentively listening to this young hunter's boast, fixed his twinkling eye upon the aspiring rifleman and said to him: “Yes; but Dan, me boy, ye must ricollict that the squirrel had no gon in his hand to shoot back at ye.” The young huntsman had not thought about that; but he doubtless found

THE Raccoon Roughs made an imposing twelfth part of the Sixth Alabama, which was one of the largest regiments in the Confederate army. Governor Moore, in order to comply with his promise to incorporate my company into one of the first regiments to be organized, consented that the Sixth should contain twelve instead of the regulation number of ten companies. A movement had been started in Atlanta to uniform my mountaineers: but when the message was received from Governor Moore, inviting us to come to Montgomery, all thought of uniformity in dress was lost in the enthusiasm evoked by the knowledge that our services were accepted; and even after the hastily prepared uniforms were issued by the new Government my company clung tenaciously to “coonskin” head-dress, which made a striking contrast to the gray caps worn by the other companies.

No regulation uniform had at this time been adopted for field officers, and in deference to the wishes and the somewhat quaint taste of Colonel Seibles, the regimental commander, the mounted officers of the Sixth wore double-breasted frock-coats made of green broadcloth, with the brass buttons of the United States army. These green coats—more suited to Irishmen than to Americans—were not discarded during the entire term of our first enlistment for twelve months, nor until we were enrolled as a part of the army that was to serve until Southern independence was won or lost. I do not know what became of my bottle-green coat, with the bullet-holes through it, which would now be an object of interest to my children. It is remarkable that during the war no care was taken of any of these battle-marked articles. All minds and hearts were absorbed in the one thought of defence. It was a long time before even the flags borne in battle became objects of special veneration, or gathered about them the sentiment which grew into a passion as the war neared its close. After one of the early battles one of my color-bearers had secured and fastened to the staff a beautiful new flag. When I asked him what he had done with the old one, he replied:

“I threw it away, sir. It was so badly shot that it was not worth keeping.”

Our departure from Montgomery for Corinth, Mississippi, where we were to go into camp of instruction for an indefinite period, was amid the roar of cannon, the shouts of the multitude, the waving of flags and handkerchiefs, and the prayers and tears of mothers, wives, and sisters. The encampment at Corinth was brief and uneventful; but our trip thence to Virginia was intensely interesting, because of the danger and threat of conflict between my troops and the citizens in certain localities. The line of our travel was through East Tennessee, where, even at that early period, there were evidences of the radical conflict of opinion between neighbors which was destined to eventuate in many bloody feuds. At the depots crowds of men were gathered, some cheering, some jeering, my troops as they passed. From the tops of houses on one side of the street floated the Stars and Stripes; from those on the other were ensigns showing sympathy with the new-born Confederacy. The responsibility on my shoulders was not a light one, for it was my duty on every account to restrain the ardor of my own men and prevent the slightest imprudence of speech or action. No other locality approached East Tennessee in the extent of suffering from this peculiarly harassing sort of strife, unless possibly it was the State of Kentucky. In both public sentiment was divided. There was intense loyalty to the Union on the one hand, and to the Confederate cause on the other.

War's visage is grim enough at best; and to the people of those localities which were constantly subjected to raids, first by one side and then by the other, its frowning face was rarely relieved by one gleam of alleviating tenderness. These divided communities were the fated grist which the demon of border war seemed determined to grind to dust between his upper and nether millstones.

In East Tennessee, Kentucky, and Missouri, neighbors who had been lifelong friends became extremely embittered. Families were divided, brother against brother, and father against son. In Kentucky, it will be remembered, many of the most prominent families of the State, among them the Breckinridges, the Clays, and the Crittendens, were represented in both the Confederate and Union armies. John C. Breckinridge, who had just left the seat of Vice-President of the United States, and who had been the candidate of one wing of the Democratic party for President, cast his fortunes with the South, and made a brilliant record as a soldier and as the last Confederate Secretary of War. Other members of this distinguished family filled honorable positions in the opposing armies, and the distinguished and somewhat eccentric divine, the Rev. Robert J. Breckinridge, was one of the most eloquent and fervid—not to say bitter— advocates of the Union cause. His trenchant pen and lashing tongue spared neither blood relatives nor ministers nor members of the church, not even those of the same faith with himself, provided he regarded them as untrue to the Union. The intensity of Dr. Breckinridge's antagonism showed itself even on his death-bed. He and the Rev. Dr. Stuart Robinson, of Kentucky, were both eminent ministers of the same church, Dr. Robinson being as intense a sympathizer with the South as Dr. Breckinridge was with the North. From devoted friends they became fierce antagonists and uncompromising foes. When Dr. Breckinridge lay on his death-bed, his family and some of his church-members were gathered around him. They were most anxious that he should be reconciled to all men, and especially to Dr. Robinson, before he died, and they asked him, “Brother Breckinridge, have you forgiven all your enemies?”

“Oh, yes; certainly, certainly I have.”

“Well, Brother Breckinridge, have you forgiven our brother Dr. Stuart Robinson?”

“Certainly I have. Didn't I just tell you that I had forgiven all my enemies?”

“But, Brother Breckinridge, when you meet Brother Stuart Robinson in heaven, do you feel that you can greet him as all the redeemed ought to greet one another?”

“Don't bother me with such questions. Stuart Robinson will never get there!”

During the year 1895 I was honored with an invitation to address an audience in Maysville, Kentucky. I was deeply impressed by the fact conveyed to me that a large number of those who sat before me had the harmony and happiness of their homes destroyed for the four years of war by the inexpressibly horrid thought that sons of the same parents were pitted against each other in battle. I was personally presented to a number of these formerly divided brothers who had bravely fought from the beginning to the end in opposing lines, but were now reunited under the old family roof and in the common Republic. It was a Kentucky father, I believe, both of whose sons had been killed in battle, the one in the Confederate, the other in the Union army, who erected to the memory of both over their common grave the monument on which he had inscribed these five monosyllables: “God knows which was right.”

So much has been said and written of the peculiar trials and horrors experienced by the divided communities in Missouri, East Tennessee, and Kentucky that it is a privilege to record one of the incidents which at rare intervals sent rays of light through those unhappy localities. Major Edwards, of the Confederate army, who afterward became an editor of distinction in Missouri, had, at the beginning of the war, a neighbor and friend who was as intense a Unionist as the major was an enthusiastic Confederate. Each felt it his duty to go into the service, and when the war came they parted to take their places in opposing battle lines. Later on, Major Edwards captured this former neighbor and friend behind the Southern lines, and near their Missouri home. In reply to the question as to why he had taken such risk of being captured and sent to a Southern prison, the Union soldier explained that his wife was behind those lines and extremely ill—probably dying; that he had taken the risk of slipping at night, between the Confederate picket posts in order to receive her last blessing and embrace. This statement was enough for the knightly man in gray. The Union soldier was at once made a prisoner, but only in the bonds of brotherly tenderness. His house was carefully guarded by Major Edwards himself until the sad parting with his wife was over, and then he was safely conducted through the Confederate lines and sent with a Confederate's sympathy to his post of duty in the Union camps.

At a recent reunion of the United Confederate Veterans, I was told of a thrilling incident which still further and more strikingly illustrates the tragedy of war in these divided States. At the beginning of the war Major M. H. Clift, of Tennessee, was a mere lad, and was attending school in another State. His father was an East Tennesseean and was devoted to the cause of the Union. Young Clift, however, was carried away by the storm of Southern enthusiasm and joined the Confederate army. The father soon yielded to his own sense of patriotic duty, and enlisted in one of the Union regiments formed in the neighborhood. In the fortunes of war, the two, father and son, were soon called to confront each other under hostile banners and in battle array. Neither had the remotest thought that the other stood in his front. In a furious charge by the Southern lines this young Confederate forced a Union soldier to surrender to him. Looking into the captured soldier's face, the young man recognized his own father. No pen could adequately depict his consternation when he realized that he had been on the point of killing his father, nor the joy which filled his heart that this dire calamity had been averted. Steps were at once taken to render it certain that no such contingency should again occur.

But the horrors of family division were not confined to these States. There were conspicuous instances elsewhere of the disruption of the most sacred ties. The Virginia kindred of that able soldier General George H. Thomas, and of ex-President Harrison, were in the Confederate service, while those of Generals Lovell and Pemberton, who fought for the Southern cause, and of Mrs. General Longstreet, supported the flag of the Union.

In my own State the wife of a Confederate officer saw her husband retreat from Savannah under the Confederate commander, while her own dearly loved kindred marched into the town under General W. T. Sherman. This wife was Nellie Kinsey, said to be the first white child born in Chicago. She grew to accomplished womanhood, and married William W. Gordon of Savannah, who made a brilliant record as a Confederate officer, and during our recent war with Spain was commissioned brigadier-general by President McKinley. Mrs. Gordon was intensely loyal to her husband and to the cause he loved, but her kindred—her only kindred—were in the Union army and conspicuous for their gallantry in almost every arm of the service. As she stood with her children watching the Federal troops march in triumphant array under the windows of her Southern home, a splendid brass band at the head of one of the divisions began playing that familiar old air, “When this Cruel War is Over.” As soon as the notes struck the ears of her little daughter, this enthusiastic young Confederate exclaimed, “Mamma, just listen to the Yankees playing ‘When this Cruel War is Over,’ and they just doing it themselves!”

When we reached Virginia the military spirit was in full flood-tide. The State had just passed the ordinance of secession, and almost every young and middle-aged man was volunteering for service. Even the servants were becoming interested in the military positions to which the aspiring young men of the household might be assigned. I recall an incident so strikingly characteristic that it seems due to a proper appreciation of these old-time loyal and faithful slaves that I give it in this connection.

Old Simon was the trusted and devoted butler of a leading Virginia family, and was very proud of his young master, who had just enlisted as a private in the cavalry, and, dressed in his new uniform and mounted

THE battle of Bull Run or Manassas was the first, and in many respects the most remarkable, battle of our Civil War. It was a series of surprises—the unexpected happening at almost every moment of its progress. Planned by the Union chieftain with consummate skill, executed for the most part with unquestioned ability, and fought by the Union troops for a time with magnificent courage, it ended at last in their disastrous rout and the official decapitation of their able commander. On the Confederate side it was a chapter of mishaps, miscarriages, and of some mistakes. It was also a chapter of superb fighting by the Southern army, and of final complete and overwhelming victory. The breaking down of the train bearing General Joseph E. Johnston's troops was an accident which almost defeated the consummation of that splendid piece of strategy by which he had eluded General Patterson in the Valley, and which had enabled him to hurry almost his entire force to the support of General Beauregard at Manassas. The mistakes are represented by the fact that the feint of General McDowell on the Confederate front was believed to be the real attack, until the Union general was hurling his army on Beauregard's flank. Finally, the most serious miscarriage was that the order from Beauregard to Ewell directing an assault on the Union left failed to reach that officer. This strange miscarriage prevented General Ewell from making a movement which it then seemed probable and now appears certain would have added materially to McDowell's disaster. I had already been instructed by him to make a reconnaissance in the direction of the anticipated assault, but I had been suddenly recalled just as my skirmishers were opening fire. I was recalled because General Ewell had not received the promised order. For me it was perhaps a most fortunate recall, for in my isolated position I should probably have been surrounded and my little command cut to pieces. On my return I found General Ewell in an agony of suspense. He was chafing like a caged lion, infuriated by the scent of blood. He would mount his horse one moment and dismount the next. He would walk rapidly to and fro, muttering to himself, “No orders, no orders.” General Ewell, who afterward became a corps commander, had in many respects the most unique personality I have ever known. He was a compound of anomalies, the oddest, most eccentric genius in the Confederate army. He was my friend, and I was sincerely and deeply attached to him. No man had a better heart nor a worse manner of showing it. He was in truth as tender and sympathetic as a woman, but, even under slight provocation, he became externally as rough as a polar bear, and the needles with which he pricked sensibilities were more numerous and keener than porcupines' quills. His written orders were full, accurate, and lucid; but his verbal orders or directions, especially when under intense excitement, no man could comprehend. At such times his eyes would flash with a peculiar brilliancy, and his brain far outran his tongue. His thoughts would leap across great gaps which his words never touched, but which he expected his listener to fill up by intuition, and woe to the dull subordinate who failed to understand him!

When he was first assigned to command at the beginning of the war, he had recently returned from fighting Indians on the Western frontier. He had been dealing only with the enlisted men of the standing army. His experience in that wild border life, away from churches, civilization, and the refining influences of woman's society, were not particularly conducive to the development of the softer and better side of his nature. He became a very pious man in his later years, but at this time he was not choice in the manner of expressing himself. He asked me to take a hasty breakfast with him just before he expected the order from Beauregard to ford Bull Run and rush upon McDowell's left. His verbal invitation was in these words: “Come and eat a cracker with me; we will breakfast together here and dine together in hell.” To a young officer like myself, who had never been under fire except at long range, on scouting excursions, or on the skirmish-line, such an invitation was not inspiring or appetizing; but Ewell's spirits seemed to be in a flutter of exultation.

An hour later, after I had been recalled from my perilous movement to “feel of the enemy,” I found General Ewell, as I have said, almost frenzied with anxiety over the non-arrival of the anticipated order to move to the attack. He directed me to send to him at once a mounted man “with sense enough to go and find out what was the matter.” I ordered a member of the governor's Horse Guard to report immediately to General Ewell. This troop represented some of the best blood of Virginia. Its privates were refined and accomplished gentlemen, many of them University graduates, who, at the first tocsin of war, had sprung into their saddles as volunteers.