Reminiscences and Horses

Not long after the battle I set out on a visit to my father's country place, Ireland, fifteen miles from our camp. Hitching up two good mules to a light army ambulance, what we needed was put in, our intention being to bring back some delicacies for the messes. Captain Thompson, of Mississippi, one of the aids, accompanied me. He was an extraordinary looking person. Nature had been unkind. The son of Jacob Thompson, Buchanan's Secretary of the Interior, he had much to hope for, but for his affliction. His teeth and jaws were firmly set and locked, and no surgical ingenuity had yet succeeded in opening them. Liquids could be conveniently taken, but mechanical arrangements had to be made for solid food by the removal of some teeth.

This young officer showing a great desire to go along with me, was taken, although I could not help picturing some surprise on the part of my father and young sisters. We were made very welcome, as fresh from the glorious battlefield, and the day was a happy one. The girls had made a captain's coat for me out of homespun cloth; but such a fit! big enough for two captains of my thickness, it hung at all angles and flapped furiously in high winds. But love had prompted its making and I would never suffer any ugly remarks about it.

Something better soon came. My brother, Doctor Sorrel, in Richmond, was always mindful of his juniors in the field, and getting possession of a blockade bolt of fine gray cloth, he soon had enough snipped off to make me two good Confederate suits, suitably laced and in regulation trim, besides a long gray cape, or cloak, well lined, which was to do me good service for years.

At "Ireland" they loaded our ambulance with good things and there were shouts of joy when we reached the camp with the delicacies.

Captain Thompson was not subject to military duty and soon returned to his home.

It should be said here that these jottings are without the aid of a scrap of notes or other memoranda. The memory alone is called on, and as the events go back forty years it is something of a test; but I hope I am rather strong on that point and do not fear falling into inventions or imaginations. There were some dry notes of dates and marches, but they cannot be found, and they would be of no use with these jottings, as no attempt at dates is made. It is a lasting regret to me that as a staff officer with opportunities of seeing and knowing much, I did not keep up a careful diary or journal throughout the war. It should be made one of the duties of the staff.

This is odd. The day after the battle I came across the body of Captain Tillinghast at the Federal field infirmary near the stone bridge. The year previous I had been much in Baltimore at the Maryland Club and had there played billiards with Tillinghast, then a captain of Artillery, U. S. A., and an agreeable acquaintance; consequently there could be no mistake when I recognized his dead body. The Federal surgeon also identifying him, I set about giving him decent burial, and managed it finally by the help of some men of Bartow's Savannah company who knew me. The ground was baked hard and we could not make the grave deep, but it was enough; and with my own hands I carved his name on the bark of a tree, under which the soldier found his last bivouac—"Otis H. Tillinghast."

Some time after, a blockade-runner, passing the lines took a letter from me to my cousin, Robert Fisher, in Baltimore, a friend also of Tillinghast. It was on other matters, but I let him know that Tillinghast's body had been recognized on the field, had received decent burial, and the spot marked. I described the location and then the matter passed out of my mind.

After peace came I was with Fisher in Baltimore and learned from him that my letter had been received and the information as to Captain Tillinghast considerately conveyed to his family. Fisher was answered soon after with thanks, "but there was some mistake," Captain Tillinghast was buried by his old classmate Samuel Jones, a Confederate brigadier-general, in a different part of the field and his body later removed to the family vault. Astonishing! If they got a body from a spot not where I had laid him they got the wrong husband. Sam Jones quite likely saw Tillinghast, but he had no hand in our burial of him. Stranger things, however, have happened.

Here are some trifles of talk remembered as coming from the famous war correspondent, Sir William Howard Russell, whose letters from the Crimea broke the Aberdeen Ministry and made him one of the leading men of the Kingdom. He was not long ago knighted at great age for his service all over the world in that field of letters. I met him several years ago in New York, in the train of the notorious Colonel North, the Chilean nitrate king. Russell had always some good stories on hand, and laughed at his chase from Bull Run battlefield, whither he had gone with the Federal army to write up their victory pictures. It gave him the name of "Bull Run Russell," which stuck to him. He admitted being very far to the rear, but said there were some generals and colonels who outstripped him to Washington! Some years after the war he met in Europe General McDowell, who said, "Russell, do you know what day this is?" "No, I don't recall any special occurrence." "It is," said McDowell, "the 21st of July, and had I succeeded on that day in '61 I should have been the greatest man in America and you the most popular."

Russell also had something about the French princes come to join McClellan's army. The two young men, Comte de Paris and Duc de Chartres, were under the care and tutelage of their uncle, the Prince de Joinville, who did not follow them to the army. On landing they received their commissions as captains, and quickly equipped themselves with handsome regulation uniforms and military appointments.

They proceeded to Washington to make formal calls of ceremony before reporting to McClellan. Among their first visits was that to Seward, the Secretary of State. On that evening he was holding a large reception. Seward himself leaving the ceremony to his son Frederick, was upstairs with some cronies drinking whiskey. "Seward was screwed, you know," said Russell, "undoubtedly screwed." When the two princes entered the hall, trim in their new uniforms, erect and soldierly, they were met by Frederick Seward, who at once went to announce them. "Tell them to come right up," said the old politician; "bring them right up and they shall have some good whiskey." "That will never do," said his son. "You must come down to them; it is etiquette and strictly in rule." And down the Secretary went. "Screwed" a little, for as soon as he spied the Frenchmen, out he broke: "Captain Chatters, glad to see you; welcome to Washington. And you too, Captain Paris. I am pleased to have you in my house. Both of you come up with me. You won't dislike the whiskey you shall taste." But the watchful Frederick came to the rescue and carried off the astonished princes with all propriety.

Russell declared this to be literally true; but if not, it at least as the Italians say, "ben trovato." Sir William was then a picturesque figure in dark blue dress coat, brass buttons, and ruffled shirt. Always interesting, he had exhaustless stores of information and adventure. A pretty young Italian wife accompanied him.

Something as to horses. I had left a good one in Savannah, in care of a member of the troop. Hearing that the horse was with him in Virginia I sent over for my property and got for answer that he was not mine; that he belonged to the man in Savannah, who not being able to enlist had contributed this fine animal to the outfit of the troop. A nice business indeed. It was easy to be patriotic with my horse, but it was soon settled. Captain Waring heard the statement, and recognizing the animal as mine had him sent to me; but the horse had been so neglected and diseased that he was no good and I was obliged to leave him by the roadside. I had, during the war, many horses, some good, some very poor. Among the best was the tough-looking clay-bank I took from my father when joining the army. He was capable of anything in speed and endurance, but with a walk so slow and a trot so bone-breaking that I had to swap him for one not so good. Many of my animals broke down from hard staff service in campaign, and a magnificent mare was killed under me in Pickett's charge at Gettysburg. A shell burst directly under her and the poor beast was instantly done for. I was not touched. In Tennessee, in 1864, I picked up a delightful little white mare, sound, fleet and enduring. I could not always get to my other horses at the outbreak of firing, and the mare's color was against us both. It was always among the soldiers, "Fire at the fellow on the white horse." She was at my brigade quarters at Appomattox and my brother rode her to Savannah. When the two appeared in front of our residence, my sisters rushed out, but could not believe that the poor, tired little mare was their brother's war horse. Their imagination had been at work.

My brother Claxton, my junior, was a fine, well set up young fellow and eager for the fray. He was also a private in the Hussars, and like myself had not waited for the company, but came on to Richmond. Here he fell in with some young Georgians from Athens, the Troop Artillery, a six-gun battery under command of Captain Carlton. Claxton joined and became a good artillerist and was a corporal when transferred. The First Georgia Regulars was organized by the State among the first, its officers being appointed by the Governor and the men enlisted anywhere. Its drill and discipline were supposed to be severer than that of other troops. This regiment was brought to Virginia and assigned to G. T. Anderson's (Tige Anderson) Georgia Brigade. With some influence and much hard work, my brother, Doctor Sorrel, succeeded in getting a commission as second lieutenant in this regiment for Claxton. Its officers were not elected; they were appointed by the Executive. Claxton's service was thenceforward with this regiment, its officers showing some of the best names in Georgia, and its reputation correspondingly high. Later I gave Captain Sorrel a temporary detail on the staff of Brigadier-General Garnett, and still later he was appointed captain in the Assistant Adjutant-General's Department and served with General John Bratton.

When we moved from Centerville my father had long since returned to Savannah with his family, and his "Ireland" place was unoccupied (it was later burned by the Union soldiers). But my cousin, Mrs. Lucy Green, and children, were at their place, "The Lawn," which would be in the enemy's territory after our withdrawal. Our first halt was near Gainesville and after getting the troops comfortably into camp I rode over to see her, about three miles. The situation was clearly described and he decided to pack her carriages and wagons and move to Richmond. I gave her a safe escort in a man from Lynchburg, Mr. Paxton, a member of Blackford's cavalry company. With farewells I rode back through the night, the better by a pair of English boots my cousin gave me. She and the children, with servants, under good Paxton's charge, made next morning a start for Richmond, where they arrived safely.

Referring again to horses, the hussar horse had been my mount at the short service on Skidaway. Henry Taylor was my messmate and rode next me on a good bay precisely the same color as mine, with considerable resemblance between them. Taylor was rich, lazy, despised discipline, and was a trial to the captain. He gave his horse no attention and the beast would have starved but for others. The captain could stand it no longer. Sending for Taylor he read him a severe lecture and promised punishment if the horse was not kept clean and tended.

Taylor was persuaded he must do something, and the next morning he was up at stable-call at the picket ropes, brush and curry comb in hand. It was very early and misty. My horse was picketed next to Taylor's and I had the satisfaction of seeing my lazy friend give him the best morning's rub he had received for many days. When Taylor woke up to what he had done and that his own horse was still to be tended he could not immediately see the joke, but soon took it in good part and had something ready for me not long after, which he thought squared us.