CONCLUSION.
I would be doing violence to the expressed wishes of an old comrade and messmate, one whose friendship for me was born at the camp fire, and was strengthened and intensified by common hardship and danger, if I were to close these records without adding a word in behalf of the cause for which we fought. Were these four wasted years? Was the war on the part of the South only a wicked rebellion, as our Northern friends have been pleased to term it?
Speaking only for myself as a humble unit in the four years" struggle, and yet feeling a.s.sured that I fairly represent a vast majority of my Confederate comrades, I can say that I never kneeled at my mother"s knee in childhood with a deeper sense of duty nor a purer feeling of devotion than impelled me when, with her tear-wet kiss upon my boyish lips, I left the old homestead to take my humble station under the "Stars and Bars." I can say further that looking backward over the record of the years, that Providence has kindly granted me, no four of them come back to me with a deeper sense of satisfaction than those which marked my service as a Confederate soldier. The convictions formed in those old days of the absolute righteousness of the cause for which we fought have only strengthened with the pa.s.sing years. While the South failed in its purpose to secure separate national existence I have never felt that in the struggle it had anything to regret but failure. Despite the tremendous odds against which it fought, despite the fact that it entered the contest without an army, without a navy, without military supplies, with the sentiment of its border States hopelessly divided, and with the sympathies of the world against it, but for the loss of its ablest Western leader in his first battle, it would not, as I believe, have had even failure to regret. If Albert Sidney Johnston had not fallen on that fateful April Sabbath when Grant"s demoralized and beaten legions were cowering under the river bank at Shiloh, he would, in my belief, have duplicated in the West, Lee"s victories in the East and Appomatox and Greensboro would have had no place in Southern history.
Even in "64, if President Davis had heeded the appeals of Gov. Brown and Gen. Johnston, of Howell Cobb and Joe Wheeler, Sherman"s constant apprehension during the Dalton and Atlanta campaign would have become a reality. Forrest, the greatest cavalry leader of the war, and, in the opinions of Lee, Johnston and Sherman, the most brilliant genius developed by it, would have been turned loose on Sherman"s rear; Atlanta would never have fallen, Lincoln would have failed of re-election and the "reconstruction" that followed in the wake of the war would have been confined to the geography of the country, rather than to Southern State governments at the hands of carpet-baggers. Lincoln expected such a result and bent every energy to end the war before the peace sentiment of the North could find expression in the election of McClellan. The failure to utilize Forrest"s genius in the destruction of Sherman"s communication, the removal of Johnston and the resultant fall of Atlanta, turned the tide and the Confederacy was doomed.
Defeat brought with it some measure of humiliation, and yet it is pleasant to remember that our short-lived republic stands in history today "without a blot upon its honor and with no unrighteous blood upon its hands." With its territory scorched and scarred by a foe, in whose military lexicon the word "humanity" found no place, the South struck no blow below the belt. It fought with rifles, not with firebrands, and made its war upon armed foes, not upon helpless women and children. It had no brutal Shermans, nor Sheridans, nor Butlers, nor Hunters in its ranks, but it is pleasant to know that it left to the world the legacy of a Lee and a Stonewall Jackson, whose military record stands unmarred by the faintest shadow of a stain and unparalleled in Anglo Saxon history. While the North fought, not for the flag, not through sympathy for the slave, but by the admission of Lincoln himself, just as surely for commercial greed as if the dollar mark had been woven into every banner that led its hosts to battle, it is a pleasant reflection that the South sought only to free itself from an alliance that had become offensive and dangerous to its liberties. And while Lincoln has been canonized as a martyred saint, I am glad to know that Jefferson Davis or Robert E. Lee would have suffered a thousand martyrdoms before they would have penned a proclamation deliberately intended not only to beggar a whole people but to subject innocent and helpless women and children to the horrors of a servile insurrection.
And so I feel a.s.sured that when in coming years posterity, unblinded by prejudice or pa.s.sion, shall give to all the claimants in the Pantheon of Fame their just and proper meed, as high in purest patriotism as any rebel that fell at Lexington or starved at Valley Forge, as high in lofty courage as any hero that rode with Cardigan at Balaclava or marched with Ney at Waterloo, or fell beneath the shadow of the spears with brave Leonidas, will stand the rebel soldier of the South, clad in his tattered grey, beneath whose faded folds is shrined the Stars and Bars of an invisible republic, that lives in history only as a memory.
ROSTER OF THE "OGLETHORPES," 1862-1865.
Co. B. 12th Ga. Battalion. Co. A, 63rd Ga. Reg.
OFFICERS.
Capt. J. V. H. Allen--Promoted Major 63rd Ga. July, 1863.
Capt. Louis A. Picquet--Wounded May 28, "64, leg amputated.
Capt. Wilberforce Daniel--Died in 1898.
Lieut. W. G. Johnson--Died since the war.
Lieut. *A. W. Blanchard--Wounded June 27, "64, promoted Capt. Co. K, 1st Ga., 1865.
Lieut. C. T. Goetchius--Living in Augusta, Ga., 1900.
Lieut. Geo. W. McLaughlin--Living in Augusta, Ga., 1900.
1st Serg. *W. A. Clark--Promoted 1st Lieut. Co. K, 1st Ga., April 10, "65.
2d Serg. *O. M. Stone--Promoted 1st Lieut. 66th Ga., "62.
2d Serg. J. W. Stoy--Captured July 23, "64, near Atlanta.
3d Serg. W. H. Clark--Promoted a.s.st. Surgeon, C. S. A., March, "63.
3d Serg. E. A. Dunbar--Promoted ensign, 1864.
3d Serg. R. B. Morris--Living in Augusta, Ga., 1900.
4th Serg. Jno. C. Hill--Living in Augusta, Ga., 1900.
5th Serg. S. C. Foreman--Wounded Jonesboro, Aug. 31, "64.
Com. Serg. *W. J. Steed--Wounded June 27, "64, arm amputated.
1st Corp. *Burt O. Miller--Promoted Lieut. 47th Ga., May 5, "64.
1st Corp. Geo. G. Leonhardt--Wounded Atlanta, July 22, "64.
2d Corp. E. Thompson.
3d Corp. B. B. Fortson--Promoted ensign, died near Tusc.u.mbia, Nov. 6, "64.
4th Corp. *L. A. R. Reab--Captured at Kennesaw, June 27, "64.
5th Corp. J. H. Warren--Living in Virginia, 1900.
6th Corp. W. H. Foster--Living in Augusta, Ga., 1900.
7th Corp. W. H. Pardue--Wounded at Kennesaw, June 27, "64.
PRIVATES.
*John Q. Adams--Wounded accidentally, Thunderbolt, July 12, "63.
W. F. Alexander--Living in Oglethorpe Co., 1900.
R. H. Allen--Living in Burke Co., 1900.
J. K. Arrington--Living in Alabama, 1900.
Philip Backus--Died since the war.
C. T. Bayliss--Killed at Kennesaw, June 27, "64.
Henry Beale.
*Jas. A. Beasley--Wounded at Bentonville, March 19, "65.
C. W. Beatty--Died of disease, Aug. 31, "63.
*D. C. Blount.
Thos. Blount.
Geo. W. Bouchillon--Died since the war.
Jas. W. Bones.
Henry Booth--Wounded Peach Tree Creek, July 20, "64.
*T. F. Burbank--Wounded near Kingston, May 19, "64.