Fort Davidson and the Battle of Pilot Knob by Walter E. Busch

Author:Walter E. Busch
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fort Davidson and the Battle of Pilot Knob
ISBN: 9781614230281
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing Inc.
Published: 2010-05-12T00:00:00+00:00

And we all likewise animated rallied around that flag. We left the plow in the furrow and soon we were drilling in camps, to prepare for actual war and for four long years, through 625 battlefields and skirmishes, we bore that flag until at last it triumphed supreme. You all know what has been the subsequent results. All the Confederates I know have realized and rejoiced in the fact that this is not a broken nation, whose desire for world place disarms warring nations, but is one united nation, and I am glad that they realize that it is better that we should have a united nation than sundry belligerent and discordant peoples. The United States is now the arbiter of the destiny of the world; is controller of its peace, simply because the rank and file of the Union army from 1861 to 1865, loved, stood by and fought to preserve for us and mankind our country. I think that the harmonizing spirit commenced at Appomattox. When Gen. Lee surrendered the rebel soldiers were without food, and you know that a man cannot fight long on an empty stomach. It fell to the lot of us boys, Grant’s seasoned veterans who had five days’ rations in our haversacks, to begin to fraternize with those starved, ragged rebels, and it fell to my lot to care for two Alabama Confederate soldiers. The first thing I did was to give them some hardtack. Though it was good and hard, they ravenously ate it. I then gave them some fried bacon and a quart each of coffee. Up to the coffee those two old rebels were silent, morose, sullen and stubborn. When the coffee arrived they were a little complacent, and when they smoked my pipe they were a little more so. I said to one of the rebels: “That was good coffee, reb.” One rebel said to me, “Yank, all coffee like this is good coffee.” I said, “If you boys will come into the Union and behave yourselves you can have coffee like that the balance of your days. The other rebel said, “I have about made up my mind to do that very thing, but I tell you Yank, if we’d had coffee like that, we could have licked all you Yanks with clubs.”

It was written in the book of fate by the inscrutable finger of God that this government was to live and continue its high, holy and supreme mission and that our descendants and mankind were to honor and love the heroes of Gettysburg, Chickamauga and Pilot Knob, and the other battles of the war. God bless you comrades. May we often meet here again.

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