The State of Jones (47 page)

17
“damnable despotism as governs the army”:
Letter from James D. Shows to his wife, James D. Shows Collection, University of Southern Mississippi, McCain Library and Archives; James M. McPherson,
For Cause and Comrades: Why Men Fought in the Civil War
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1995), p. 48; John K. Bettersworth,
Mississippi in the Confederacy: As They Saw It
(1961; reprint, New York: Kraus Reprint Company, 1970), p. 65.

17
mortification at his own appearance:
Henry Steele Commager, ed.,
The
Civil War Archive: The History of the Civil War in Documents
(New York: Black Dog and Leventhal Publishers, 2000), p. 221.

18
basic drill commands:
War Department Collection of Confederate Records, Record Group 109, Compiled Service Records of Confederate Soldiers Who Served in Organizations from the State of Mississippi, 7th Battalion, Mississippi Infantry, microfilm (M269), NARA; Leverett,
The Legend of the Free State of Jones
, p. 50.

18
“all the medicine we had then”:
Frost, “The South’s Strangest Army. Revealed by Chief.”

18
induce calm and sleep:
“The Regimental Hospital,” in Henry Steele Commager, ed.,
The Civil War Archive
(New York: Black Dog and Leventhal Publishers, 2000), pp. 537-38; George Worthington Adams, “Confederate Medicine,”
Journal of Southern History
6:2 (May 1940): 154-55.

19
a wounded soldier’s best friend:
McPherson,
Battle Cry of Freedom
, pp. 477, 486; on field hospital orderlies, see Walt Whitman, “Specimen Days,” in
The Portable Walt Whitman
, Mark Van Doren, ed. (New York: Penguin Books, 1977), pp. 420, 421, 427, 432; Harwell,
Kate: Journal of a Confederate Nurse
, pp. 9-40; Harold Elk Straubing, ed.,
In Hospital and Camp: The Civil War Through the Eyes of Its Doctors and Nurses
(Harrisburg, Penn.: Stackpole Books, 1993), pp. 27-37; H. H. Cunningham,
Doctors in Gray: The Confederate Medical Service
(1958; reprint, Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1986), pp. 71-98; Wiley,
The Life of Johnny Reb
, pp. 244-69. Rorer is quoted from a typescript of a letter to his cousin Susan, December 20, 1863, Civil War Collection, MHI. The original of Rorer’s letter, one of several to his cousin describing camp life, is in the papers of James M. Willcox, 1831-71, Duke University, Special Collections Library.

19
at Iuka two weeks earlier:
A division consisted of three brigades. A brigade included four regiments (or three battalions) of ten companies, with each company constituting between forty-five and one hundred men, according to McPherson,
Ordeal by Fire
, pp. 172-73.

19
exile in Mexico over surrender:
For a description of Price and his actions at Iuka see Cozzens,
The Darkest Days of the War
, pp. 75-103; letter from Lieutenant Colonel Columbus Sykes of the 43rd Mississippi Infantry to
his wife, Pauline, September 18, 1862, Civil War Collection, MHI, Carlisle Barracks, Pa.

19
“the impudence to come near”:
Letter from Lieutenant Colonel Columbus Sykes to his wife, Pauline, September 18, 1862, Civil War Collection, MHI, Carlisle Barracks, Pa.

20
tramping back the way they came:
Cozzens,
The Darkest Days of the War
, pp. 75-133.

20
“a more foolhardy expedition than the last”:
Ibid., p. 135.

20
“the
confidence
of all his soldiers”:
Letter from Lieutenant Colonel Columbus Sykes to his wife, Pauline, September 29, 1862, Civil War Collection, MHI, Carlisle Barracks, Pa.

21
charges of negligence:
Shelby Foote,
The Civil War, A Narrative
, part 1 (1956; reprint, New York: Vintage, 1986), p. 725. Van Dorn was rumored to
be licentious and would be shot to death the following May by physician George Peters over a supposed adulterous affair, although some suspected Peters of disloyalty. For the Confederate official reports of the battle of Corinth see
OR
, series 1, vol. 17, part 1, pp. 375-414.

22
“Had grape pie for supper”:
Cozzens,
The Darkest Days of the War
, p. 33; diary of John McKee, 2nd Iowa Infantry, Civil War Collection, MHI, Carlisle Barracks, Pa.

22
“You must be a mind reader”:
Memoir of Hugh Carlisle, 81st Ohio Infantry, Civil War Collection, MHI, Carlisle Barracks, Pa., p. 157.

22
“whenever they get a chance”:
McPherson,
For Cause and Comrades
, p. 119.

23
“before we got niggers”:
Ibid.

23
“reproduce their kind”:
Memoir of Joseph K. Nelson, 81st Ohio, Civil War Collection, MHI, Carlisle Barracks, Pa.

23
“take better care of them”:
Diary of George C. Burmeister, 35th Iowa Infantry, November 27, 1862, Civil War Collection, MHI, Carlisle Barracks, Pa. To a certain extent, Burmeister has internalized proslavery rhetoric, which assumed that masters and slaves lived together peacefully and that slaves were well treated. Even someone as sophisticated as Nathaniel Hawthorne could assert that in the South, masters and slaves lived “together in greater peace and affection … than had ever elsewhere existed between the taskmaster and the serf.” See Nathaniel Hawthorne,
Life of Franklin Pierce
(1852; reprint, Honolulu: University Press of the Pacific, 2002), p. 90.

23
informed the Northern soldiers:
Memoir of Lewis F. Phillips, 4th Iowa, Civil War Collection, MHI, Carlisle Barracks, Pa.

24
“a just retribution”:
Bobby Leon Roberts and Carl Moneyhon, eds.,
Portraits of Conflict: A Photographic History of Mississippi in the Civil War
(Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 1993), p. 275.

24
it seemed they might overlap:
Memoir of Hugh Carlisle, 81st Ohio Infantry, Civil War Collection, MHI, Carlisle Barracks, Pa.

24
one had just missed:
Memoir of Lewis F. Phillips, 4th Iowa, Civil War Collection, MHI, Carlisle Barracks, Pa.

24
to clean the wound:
Commager, “The Regimental Hospital,” in
The Civil War Archive
, pp. 537-38; memoir of Hugh Carlisle, Civil War Collection, MHI, Carlisle Barracks, Pa.

25
rallying them onward:
Diary of John McKee, 2nd Iowa Infantry, Civil War Collection, MHI, Carlisle Barracks, Pa.;
OR
, series 1, vol. 17, part 1.

25
He went to the rear:
Memoir of Hugh Carlisle, 81st Ohio Infantry, Civil War Collection, MHI, Carlisle Barracks, Pa.

25
sparing their lives:
Memoir of Hugh Carlisle, 81st Ohio Infantry, and diary of William Burge, 11th Iowa Infantry, Civil War Collection, MHI, Carlisle Barracks, Pa.

26
“and spiked the big guns”:
The eyewitness account of Terral’s death is from Roberts and Moneyhon,
Portraits of Conflict
, p. 168.

27
overcome in a single day:
OR
, series 1, vol. 17, part 1, p. 379.

27
were suddenly cold:
Cozzens,
The Darkest Days of the War
, pp. 230-32.

27
to keep him alive:
This scene is drawn from McPherson,
Battle Cry of Freedom
, p. 477; Ambrose Bierce, “The Coup de Grace,” in
Civil War Stories
(New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1994), pp. 79-80.

27
invariably suppurated:
Commager, “The Regimental Hospital,” in
The Civil War Archive
, pp. 537-38.

28
not only hollow, but obscene:
Ibid.

28
“into the street”:
Memoir of Hugh Carlisle, 81st Ohio Infantry, Civil War Collection, MHI, Carlisle Barracks, Pa.

29
reinforcements arrived via train:
OR
, series 1, vol. 17, part 1, p. 431.

29
“her bells rang out”:
Letters of Nehemiah Davis Starr, 21st Missouri Volunteers, Leslie Anders Collection, MHI, Carlisle Barracks, Pa.; Foote,
The Civil War
, part 1, p. 723.

30
“on the wagons”:
Letters of Nehemiah Davis Starr, 21st Missouri Volunteers, Leslie Anders Collection, MHI, Carlisle Barracks, Pa.

30
“from under our feet”:
Memoir of Lewis F. Phillips, 4th Iowa, Civil War Collection, MHI, Carlisle Barracks, Pa.

31
or even orders:
OR
, series 1, vol. 17, part 1, pp. 385-92; Cozzens,
The Darkest Days of the War
, p. 235.

31
raining down on them:
Letter from Lieutenant Colonel Columbus Sykes to his wife, Pauline, August 31, 1862, Civil War Collection, MHI, Carlisle Barracks, Pa.;
OR
, series 1, vol. 17, part 1, pp. 389-92.

32
charge at the “double-quick”:
OR
, series 1, vol. 17, part 1, pp. 385-92.

32
“The very atmosphere seemed filled”:
OR
, series 1, vol. 17, part 1, pp. 38592; Cozzens,
The Darkest Days of the War
, pp. 268-69. 32
“until I stopped!”:
McPherson,
For Cause and Comrades
, p. 42.

32
“trampled underfoot”:
Quoted in Cozzens,
The Darkest Days of the War
, p. 241.

32
through the jaw:
Leverett,
The Legend of the Free State of Jones
, p. 56. It’s not clear exactly when Harper and Reddoch were wounded in the action, but this was the heaviest fighting the 7th Battalion was involved in.

33
“old women”:
Diary of Joseph K. Nelson, 81st Ohio, Civil War Collection, MHI, Carlisle Barracks, Pa.

33
“in the
bakeries
and
stores
”:
Memoir of Lewis F. Phillips, 4th Iowa, Civil War Collection, MHI, Carlisle Barracks, Pa.; the Civil War diary of Cyrus F. Boyd, as quoted in Bettersworth,
Mississippi in the Confederacy
, p. 98.

34
“din of battle”:
Diary of Edward Dean, 4th Wisconsin, Civil War Collection, MHI, Carlisle Barracks, Pa.

34
“snow in thaw”:
OR
, series 1, vol. 17, part 1, pp. 385-92; Cozzens,
The Darkest Days of the War
, pp. 268-69.

34
“intense meaning of that term”:
OR
, series 1, vol. 17, part 1, pp. 385-92; Cozzens,
The Darkest Days of the War
, pp. 268-69; Bettersworth,
Mississippi in the Confederacy
, p. 97.

35
“like pitch forks”:
General description of the action at Robinett is from Cozzens,
The Darkest Days of the War
, p. 268; the diary of William Burge,
11th Iowa Infantry, Civil War Collection, MHI, Carlisle Barracks, Pa.; quotation is from the Civil War diary of Cyrus F. Boyd, 15th Iowa Infantry, as quoted in Bettersworth,
Mississippi in the Confederacy
, pp. 95-98.

35
“My God, my boys are running!”:
Cozzens,
The Darkest Days of the War
, p. 270.

35
“running from my mouth”:
McPherson,
For Cause and Comrades
, p. 42.

35
and Rogers’s horse:
The photograph of Rogers and Battery Robinett is reproduced in Roberts and Moneyhon,
Portraits of Conflict
, p. 175; description of those found there is from the diary of William Wade, 11th Iowa, Civil War Collection, MHI, Carlisle Barracks, Pa.

36
as at parade rest:
Diary of Edward Dean, 4th Wisconsin, and diary of Joseph K. Nelson, 81st Ohio, Civil War Collection, MHI, Carlisle Barracks, Pa.

36
refused to move:
Diary of Edward Dean, 4th Wisconsin, Civil War Collection, MHI, Carlisle Barracks, Pa.

37
one long, thin coffin:
Cozzens,
The Darkest Days of the War
, pp xi-xii, quotation from p. xii; “The Battle of Corinth,”
Harper’s Weekly
, November 1, 1862, quotation from p. 699; Earl Van Dorn, “Report of the Battle of Corinth, October 20, 1862,”
OR
, series 1, vol. 17, part 1, p. 379; Leverett,
The Legend of the Free State of Jones
, p. 56.

37
“sustained a death-blow”:
Ulysses S. Grant,
Memoirs and Selected Letters
(New York: Library of America, 1990), p. 281; William Tecumseh Sherman,
Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman
(New York: Library of America, 1990), p. 284.

37
lay uncared for:
OR
and Court Martial of Van Dorn,
OR
, series 1, vol. 17, part 1, pp. 460-75.

37
by happenstance:
Ibid.

38
with their own money:
Ibid.

38
reported for duty:
War Department Collection of Confederate Records, RG 109, Compiled Service Records, 7th Battalion, Mississippi Infantry, microfilm (M269), NARA; Bynum,
The Free State of Jones
, pp. 101-102; Leverett,
The Legend of the Free State of Jones
, p. 56.

38
at about this time:
War Department Collection of Confederate Records, RG 109, Compiled Service Records, 7th Battalion, Mississippi Infantry, micro-film (M269), NARA; Leverett,
The Legend of the Free State of Jones
, p. 56; Welborn deposition,
Newton Knight et al. v. United States
, Congressional Case 8013-8464.

39
“a thousand wrongs”:
Lord Byron, “The Siege of Corinth” (1816), in
Selected Poems
, eds. Susan J. Wolfson and Peter J. Manning (New York: Penguin Books, 1996), p. 363. On ancient Greek stories being in circulation in the antebellum South, see Michael O’Brien,
Conjectures of Order: Intellectual Life and the American South, 1810-1860
(Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2004), pp. 606-22, 636-52; Michael O’Brien, ed.,
All Clever Men, Who Make Their Way: Critical Discourse in the Old South
(Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1992), pp. 398-419; Caroline Winterer,
The Culture of Classicism: Ancient Greece and Rome in American
Intellectual Life, 1780-1910
(Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002), pp. 44-98; Caroline Winterer,
The Mirror of Antiquity: American Women and the Classical Tradition
(Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2007), pp. 165-90.