To Appomattox by Burke Davis

Author:Burke Davis
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781504034425
Publisher: Open Road Media
Published: 2017-10-16T04:00:00+00:00

It seemed an age ago to Lieutenant W. F. Robinson that he had helped to drive files into the touchholes of the guns of the Ringgold Battery, and to chop down their wheels. He could not accept the fact that it was only two days before that he had kicked in the shoemaker’s door in Richmond and seized his new pair of $600 boots.

He was on horseback, but his company of artillerymen, unaccustomed to marching, had suffered greatly. Since leaving the burning capital he had eaten only hardtack, huge “Yankee Crackers” as large as dinner plates.

He had a bag of peas to keep his horse alive, and carried it in front of his saddle, doling out a handful morning and night. The route of retreat led by the farm of his uncle, Dr. Thomas Robinson, and the lieutenant paused briefly. His uncle filled the lieutenant’s canteen with sorghum molasses, and had time for a word of news: Two of the doctor’s sons had been taken in a cavalry fight, and were Federal prisoners.

The boy, George Jefferson, spent a memorable day at Winterham, the family home outside Amelia. Ambulances came with wounded Confederate soldiers, casualties of a caisson explosion in the courthouse village the evening before. Chaplains prayed over them as they were carried into the farmhouse.

George’s Uncle Garland raised a yellow hospital flag over the roof as protection against Yankee foragers. Straggling and crippled soldiers swarmed in. At noon a detachment of thirty Federal horsemen trotted up, carbines ready. George remembered one of them: “The gallant lieutenant in command had captured a long-necked gander from the Widow Quinn, at the Courthouse, and carried it swinging to his saddle.”

The yard of Winterham cleared quickly. A couple of dozen able-bodied Confederates went into the woods, hid in the garden, or crawled into bed with the wounded. Many were captured, but Garland Jefferson stood belligerently at his doorway, pointing to the yellow flag, and the Federals did not enter. The bluecoat lieutenant snatched a new felt hat from Jefferson’s head and forced him to remove his fine calfskin boots, and left his Union army brogans in exchange.

When they had rounded up the prisoners from the woods, taken all the eggs from the barn and outbuildings, and drunk up a little keg of whisky, the Federals rode away. Young George Jefferson said, “I don’t think I was ever as scared in my life.”

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