In the Company of Deja Vu; or, Who Saw This Coming?

Reading the following narrative from Company Aytch, I couldn't shake the eerie feeling
that I'd watched this scene played out in person.  After thinking about it off and on for
a few hours, I dug out my DVD copy of "Gods and Generals", the Civil War film of a
few years ago that is unmatched for apparent technical accuracy, scenic and
costume beauty, dialogue and soaring (and realistic) battle scenes.  And there, in
scene 46, I found this narrative acted out, with only the names taken out (they would
have been extraneous information in the film).  When I saw the film a while back I had
assumed the scene was a composite put together by a writer to show in one scene
the phenomenon of the soldier who senses his own death, the poetic charm of the
young and uneducated -- but earnest -- Southern soldier, the military man's penchant
for carrying tokens and talismans into battle, and the tendency of a military campaign
to reduce life to its bare essentials -- blanket, clothing, rations, rifle and cartridge box.
Little did I suspect that Private Watkins of Company H should have received a writing
credit.  Of course, by his own admission, he was just writing "as I saw things then,
and remember them now."

PRESENTIMENT, OR THE WING OF THE ANGEL OF DEATH.  Presentiment is
always a mystery. The soldier may at one moment be in good spirits, laughing and
talking. The wing of the death angel touches him. He knows that his time has come.
It is but a question of time with him then. He knows that his days are numbered. I
cannot explain it. God has numbered the hairs of our heads, and not a sparrow falls
without His knowledge. How much more valuable are we than many sparrows.  We
had stopped at Lee & Gordon's mill, and gone into camp for the night. Three days
rations were being issued.  When Bob Stout was given his rations he refused to take
them. His face wore a serious, woe-begone expression.  He was asked if he was sick,
and said "No," but added, "Boys, my days are numbered, my time has come.  In three
days from to-day, I will be lying right yonder on that hillside a corpse.  Ah, you may
laugh; my time has come. I ve got a twenty dollar gold piece in my pocket that I ve
carried through the war, and a silver watch that my father sent me through the lines.
Please take them off when I am dead, and give them to Captain Irvine, to give to my
father when he gets back home. Here are my clothing and blanket that any one who
wishes them may have. My rations I do not wish at all. My gun and cartridge-box I
expect to die with."  

The next morning the assembly sounded about two o clock.  We commenced our
march in the darkness, and marched twenty- five miles to a little town by the name
of Lafayette, to the relief of General Pillow, whose command had been attacked at
that place. After accomplishing this, we marched back by another road to
Chickamauga. We camped on the banks of Chickamauga on Friday night, and
Saturday morning we commenced to cross over. About twelve o clock we had crossed.
No sooner had we crossed than an order came to double quick.  General Forrest's
cavalry had opened the battle. Even then the spent balls were falling amongst us with
that peculiar thud so familiar to your old soldier.  Double quick!  There seemed to be
no rest for us. Forrest is needing reinforcements.  Double quick, close up in the rear!
siz, siz, double quick, boom, hurry up, bang, bang, a rattle de bang, bang, siz, boom,
boom, boom, hurry up, double quick, boom, bang, halt, front, right dress, boom, boom,
and three sol diers are killed and twenty wounded.  Billy Webster's arm was torn out by
the roots and he killed, and a fragment of shell buried itself in Jim McEwin s side, also
killing Mr. Fain King, a conscript from Mount Pleasant.  Forward, guide center, march,
charge bayonets, fire at will, commence firing. . . .  We debouched through the woods,
firing as we marched, the Yankee line about two hundred yards off.  Bang, bang, siz,
siz. It was a sort of running fire.  We kept up a constant fire as we advanced.  In ten
minutes we were face to face with the foe.  It was but a question as to who could load
and shoot the fastest. The army was not up. Bragg was not ready for a general battle.
The big battle was fought the next day, Sunday.  We held our position for two hours
and ten minutes in the midst of a deadly and galling fire, being enfiladed and almost
surrounded, when General Forrest galloped up and said, "Colonel Field, look out, you
are almost surrounded; you had better fall back." The order was given to retreat. I ran
through a solid line of blue coats.  As I fell back, they were upon the right of us, they
were upon the left of us, they were in front of us, they were in the rear of us.  It was a
perfect hornets 7 nest. The balls whistled around our ears like the escape valves of ten
thousand engines.  The woods seemed to be blazing ; everywhere, at every jump,
would rise a lurking foe.  But to get up and dust was all we could do. I was running
along by the side of Bob Stout. General Preston Smith stopped me and asked if our
brigade was falling back. I told him it was.  He asked me the second time if it was
Maney's brigade that was falling back. I told him it was. I heard him call out, "Attention,
forward!"  One solid sheet of leaden hail was falling around me. I heard General Preston
Smith's brigade open. It seemed to be platoons of artillery. The earth jarred and trembled
like an earthquake. Deadly missiles were flying in every direction. It was the very
incarnation of death itself. I could almost hear the shriek of the death angel passing
over the scene.   General Smith was killed in ten minutes after I saw him. Bob Stout
and myself stopped.  Said I, "Bob, you wern't killed, as you expected." He did not reply,
for at that very moment a solid shot from the Federal guns struck him between the waist 
and the hip, tearing off one leg and scattering his bowels all over the ground. I heard him
shriek out, "O, O, God !" His spirit had flown before his body struck the ground.
Farewell, friend; we will meet over yonder.  

--from Chapter VIII

Rowland Shot to Death, or Aytch is for Hell

One morning I went over to the 23rd Tennessee Regiment on a visit to Captain Gray Armstrong and Colonel Jim Niel, both of whom were glad to see me as we were old ante-bellum friends. While at Colonel Niel's marquee I saw a detail of soldiers bring out a man by the name of Rowland, whom they were going to shoot to death by musketry by order of the court martial, for desertion. I learned that he had served out the term for which he had originally volunteered, had quit our army and joined that of the Yankees, and was captured with Prentiss' Yankee brigade at Shiloh. He was being hauled to the place of execution in a wagon, sitting on an old gun box, which was to be his coffin. When they got to the grave, which had been dug the day before, the water had risen in it, and a soldier was bailing it out. Rowland spoke up and said, "Please hand me a drink of that water, as I want to drink out of my own grave so the boys will talk about it when I am dead and remember Rowland." They handed him the water and he drank all there was in the bucket and, handing it back, asked them to please hand him a little more as he had heard that water was very scarce in hell and it would be the last he would ever drink. He was then carried to the death post and there he began to cut up jack generally. He began to curse Bragg, Jeff Davis and the Southern Confederacy and all the Rebels at a terrible rate. He was simply arrogant and very insulting. I felt that he deserved to die. He said he would show the Rebels how a Union man could die. I do not know what all he did say. When the shooting detail came up, he went of his own accord and knelt down at the post. The captain commanding the squad gave the command, "Ready, aim, fire!" and Rowland tumbled over on his side. It was the last of Rowland.

--Chapter III

In Good Company

One score and four years ago, I was in the tenth grade, and our history teacher, a Mr. Hawkins ("I'm the HAWK -- no one cheats in my class"), suggested that as part of a study project on the U.S. Civil War (aka the War Between the States, the War of Northern Aggression, the War to Preserve the Union, the War of the Rebellion, the Late Unpleasantness), we should find a "civil war diary" in the library -- a diary of a solider who fought in the war. I was intrigued by the notion just enough to put forth the effort to search for such a thing in our school library and the public library, but without result. Such an original source just didn't make the cut with our local government, whether it be for their high school's library or for their library featuring titles selected for the general reading public. Or maybe I just never really figured out that whole Dewey decimal system thing . . . .

Anyway, a generation later, I'm finally reading that civil war diary that Mr. Hawkins wanted me to read. And it's not half bad. So far, at least. I gather from the introduction that this is one of the classics -- not exactly accomplished literature, but lively, entertaining and mythic in its aspirations. Sam Watkins was born and lived his life in Columbia, Tennessee (also home to one James K. Polk!), a small town in a part of Tennessee with which I happen to be very familiar. But from 1861 to 1865, he traveled all over the South, mostly on foot I gather, fighting the Yankees as part of Company H, or the Maury Grays, part of the First Tennessee Infantry Regiment, Confederate States of America.

Watkins' entertaining style is in direct contrast to the horrors he witnessed; horrors he includes with real directness, as will be seen in my later posts. The odds against his being able to write about them were high, as noted in the Introduction:

Watkins would fight through some of the most difficult battles of the Civil War. Service at Shiloh was followed by Corinth, Perryville, Murfreesboro, Shelbyville, Chattanooga, Chickamauga, Missionary Ridge, the Hundred Days' Battles, and the Atlanta, Jonesboro, Franklin and Nashville campaigns. He was wounded three times -- at Murfreesboro, Atlanta, and Nashville -- but always recovered to reenter the fray. Out of the original 3,150 men who formed the Army of Tennessee, and the 1,950 recruits and conscripts who joined them, only 125 officers and men remained when the war was concluded in 1865. Out of the 120 men who enlisted with Watkins in Company H in 1861, he was one of only seven survivors.

Up next: the story of the man who drank water from his own grave.

Judging a Book By Its Cover

So it's turned out to be a good, if challenging read. But I admit it -- when I bought it several years ago, it was, as much as anything else, because of the cover. It's hard to beat a 19th century, good condition "tree calf" binding with intact gilting. The leather on the front and back covers is from the spine of the animal; thus the "tree" pattern running vertically on each cover.

And what's this on the front cover? The seal of "Plymouth College"? What would have been a great mystery to me just a few years ago is easily solved with google: check out www.plymouthcollege.com. "Founded in 1877, we are a city-based independent school providing continuous education for boys and girls aged 3 to 18, with boarding facilities at the senior school from age 11." It's in Devon, England. I think these must have been "award" books given at graduation or possibly as competition prizes. Unfortunately, the school's website is very "forward looking", to quote from it, and contains little about the school's history. It's a peculiar trait of modern Britain that it turns away from its glorious, fascinating history in favor of EU-era secularist egalitarianism. (But I guess that's a different post, really.)

The Mystery of Scripture

"I have sometimes seen more in a line of the Bible than I could well tell how to stand under, and yet at another time the whole Bible hath been to me as dry as a stick; or rather, my heart hath been so dead and dry unto it, that I could not conceive the least drachm of refreshment, though I have looked it all over."

--John Bunyan, Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners

On Studies

"Crafty men condemn studies, simple men admire them, and wise men use them."

--Francis Bacon

Professor T vs. the Sand-Blind Pedant

"The man who cannot wonder, who does not habitually wonder (and worship), were he President of innumerable Royal Societies, and carried the whole Mecanique Celeste and Hegel's Philosophy, and the epitome of all Laboratories and Observatories with their results, in his single head,--is but a Pair of Spectacles behind which there is no Eye. Let those who have Eyes look through him, then he may be useful.

"Thou wilt have no Mystery and Mysticism; wilt walk through thy world by the sunshine of what thou callest Truth, or even by the hand-lamp of what I call Attorney-Logic; and 'explain' all, 'account' for all, or believe nothing of it? Nay, thou wilt attempt laughter; whoso recognizes the unfathomable, all-pervading domain of Mystery, which is everywhere under our feet and among our hands; to whom the Universe is an Oracle and Temple, as well as a Kitchen and Cattle-stall,--he shall be a delirious Mystic; to him thou, with sniffing charity, wilt protrusively proffer thy hand-lamp, and shriek, as one injured, when he kicks his foot through it?--Armer Teufel! Doth not thy cow calve, doth not thy bull gender? Thou thyself, wert thou not born, wilt thou not die? 'Explain' me all this, or do one of two things: Retire into private places with thy foolish cackle; or, what were better, give it up, and weep, not that the reign of wonder is done, and God's world all disembellished and prosaic, but that thou hitherto art a Dilettante and sand-blind Pedant."

--The Good Professor Teufelsdrockh on mystery