Fighting for the Confederacy (Civil War America) by Gary W. Gallagher

Author:Gary W. Gallagher [Gallagher, Gary W.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press
Published: 2000-11-09T07:00:00+00:00

Chapter 14 SPRING OF 1864

A sixty day furlough contemplated from near its beginning looks so liberal that one may be easily tempted to extravagance with it. And that was what happened to me now. My father urged me to run down to Savannah for a few days, to visit my aunt & her husband, Maj. Porter.1 My wife protested, but it seemed stingy to refuse even a very few days, & I consented, never dreaming that calamity was already loading up for me. I kept no record of exact dates, but early in Feb. I got back from the Savh. trip & received but a sad & tearful welcome. For, even when I had been in Sav., telegraphic orders had summoned me back to East Tennessee. Not for any active service—I would not have minded that, for if that were to go on, I would not willingly be absent from my men. But I was summoned as a witness in a court martial about to be held upon Gen. McLaws. Gen. Longstreet had preferred charges, which I will speak of more fully later, & had given in my name as a witness though really I knew little or nothing bearing upon the real merits of the case. When the telegram arrived, during my absence, my father & my wife not only did not forward it to me in Savh., but they agreed together that they would not tell me of it when I came. But as the time drew near to welcome me, with their guilty secret on their minds, my father broke down & had to admit that he could not keep it. He felt himself partly responsible for my going to Savh., & he could not be sure how I would feel about a failure to appear at the time & place ordered, & so I was informed of the dispatch. It was a dreadful blow to me—about three weeks of furlough cut off without warning, &, as I felt, for no earthly good.

However, there was nothing to do but to obey orders and after about the hardest farewell we had yet had to take—for we knew the coming summer would bring a severe campaign—I took the next train for Richmond. That was the one time of the war when I obeyed orders & have been sorry for it from that day to this. When I arrived in Richmond I learned that the meeting of the court martial had been postponed, & it was again post poned, & only took place long after my furlough expired. I might have had the whole of it at home. I have no record of the exact dates, but it was too late to return home, when I found out how it would be, & so I remained in Richmond where my sisters, Mrs. Gilmer & Mrs. Lawton, were keeping house for their husbands, who were at the head of the Engineering & Quartermaster Departments, & two of my brothers were also stationed, one in each of these offices.

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