Hiram Parks
Bell: In the War
The following is chapter 11 from
Hiram Parks Bell’s Men and Things, published in 1907:
“The picnic phase of the war passed
with the year 1861.
“The following year opened with the conviction
universally prevailing that it would be protracted, stubborn, and bloody. The call of the government for more troops
was urgent; and in response thereto, the Governor of Georgia issued his order
for 12 regiments of volunteers, to serve three years, or during the war. Henry C. Kellogg raised one company of 100
men and the writer another of an equal number in Forsyth County. These companies repaired to Camp McDonald early
in March, 1862, for organization into regiments. These two---‘E’ and ‘I’---Captains, Kellogg and Bell; two from
Cherokee---‘A’ and ‘B’---Captains, Mullin and Grantham; two from Jackson---‘G’
and ‘H’---Captains, Story and Howard; two from Hall---‘F’ and ‘H’---Captains,
Law and Reeves; one from Pickens---‘C’---Captain, Harris; and one from
Banks---‘D’---Captain, Ragsdale, were formed into the Forty-third Regiment of
Georgia Volunteers. The field officers
elected to command it were: Skidmore
Harris, Colonel; H.P. Bell, Lieutenant Colonel; and Henry C. Kellogg,
Major. Early in April the regiment was
ordered to Chattanooga, where it soon entered upon the usual experience of raw
recruits---in sickness, superinduced by the change of habitats and comforts of
home life, to the exposure, privation, and duties of life in the camp. Measles, flux, dysentery, and brain fever
attacked the troops; some died and nearly all were more or less sick. In this condition of affairs,
Brigadier-General Ledbetter, who was commanding at Chattanooga, was ordered to
Bridgeport to defend the railroad bridge against General Mitchell, who, with a
column six thousand strong from Buell’s army, was advancing to seize it. General Ledbetter gathered all of his
soldiers that were able to move, not exceeding 500 in number, crossed the river
and formed his line of battle on the west bank, sending out scouts under
Lieutenant Rheinheart to ascertain and report the movements of the enemy. Starnes’ cavalry reported that the enemy was
rapidly approaching in forces.
Convinced of his inability to resist it, General Ledbetter ordered his
troops to fall back across the river, which they did in order. Their camp equipage, knapsacks, etc. were
placed on a hand-car to run over the bridge.
After all had crossed except those in charge of the hand-car, and
General Ledbetter, Lieutenant-Colonel Jackson, and the writer, who were
awaiting the return of the scouts, the enemy’s battery opened fire on us from
the top of the hill with a storm of grape and canister. Rheinheart had been wounded and he and his
scouts captured. We walked across the
bridge in a tempest of balls and splinters from the battery, not 400 yards
distant, without being struck. It was
not a comfortable experience. The
hand-car was behind us near the middle of the river. It struck me and knocked me from the plank upon which I was
walking, and, but for the accident of falling diagonally across the bridge
timbers, I would have gone to the bottom of the river. This episode added nothing to the comfort of
the occasion. Just as the hand-car
reached the end of the bridge, it ran over a soldier and cut off , entirely,
both of his lower limbs at the trunk, and the poor fellow was wallowing in his
blood and gasping in the agonies of a horrible death.
“The bridge was blown up and the
advance of the enemy, by that means, arrested.
This was my introduction ‘to the pomp and glorious circumstances of
war.’
“When I entered the army, with the
opinion entertained of the magnitude and duration of the war, I did not cherish
the slightest hope of escaping death.
In middle life, without military training or predilection, and honored
with command, my only resource was to obey orders, do my duty, and perish
rather than soil the escutcheon of my wife and children with the stain of
cowardice. This I resolved to do and
never faltered in keeping this resolution.
The first test came at Bridgeport.
I was in command of the regiment but so sick that I could scarcely stand
on my feet, but I did stand all day, though in agony, and without
complaint. When a field officer pleads
sick in the hour of danger, the burden of proof is upon him. The result of this affair was an attack of
fever that kept me in bed for three months, with the balance quivering in
uncertainty most of the time. I
rejoined the regiment the last of July, still feeble, in East Tennessee near
Morristown.
“The regiment, then in Reynold’s
brigade, was ordered to Cumberland Gap, then strongly fortified and occupied by
the Federals under Gen. Morgan. There
was a fight with the Federals, under DeCoursey, at Tazewell, resulting in
DeCoursey’s defeat and his withdrawal and return to the gap. Nothing of interest occurred except
occasional firing between the pickets and foraging parties of the hostile
forces until the last of August, when, in conjunction with Bragg’s invasion of
Kentucky, Kirby Smith’s column crossed the Cumberland Mountains at Roger’s Gap
and the Federals evacuated their stronghold and fell back toward the Ohio. Smith had a sharp engagement early in
September with Nelson at Richmond in which he won a brilliant triumph over
superior numbers, capturing many prisoners and a large amount of arms, etc.,
and completely routed the Federal forces.
Bragg captured Mumsfordville, moving in the direction of Louisville;
Smith moved to Lexington. We were then
in the far-famed ‘Blue grass region of Kentucky.’ The counties of Fayette, Bourbon, Madison, Scott, Jessamine, and
Harrison form the most beautiful country I ever beheld. Its broad, macadamized pikes, its palatial
homes, its baronial farms, its expansive fields of blue grass, with their fat,
sleek, grazing herds; its beautiful
forests of walnut, beach, maple, and elms, touched with the first tints of
autumn---all conspired to heighten its charms.
But I confess to being absorbed in other thoughts. We were in the birthland of Lincoln and
Davis, among a people the valor of whose forefathers, at Broadaze, Wisconsin
Heights, Tippecanoe, Thames, New Orleans, Buena Vista, Cerro Gordo, Cherubusco,
Chapultepec, and Molino del Rey, had shed the light of imperishable glory upon the
chivalry of Kentuckians and the history of Kentucky---a State whose glorious
history is illustrated with a long list of illustrious jurists, orators,
statesmen, heroes and poets---with her Clays and Crittendens, her Marshalls and
Breckenridges, her Prestons and Johnsons, her Prentices, Warfields and
Welbys---a glorious list of names that eclipse the proudest that emblazon the
escutcheon of Norman heraldry. A land
whose men are brave as Caesar, and whose women, more beautiful than ‘the
starry-eyed Sorceress of the Nile,’ was now hopelessly divided and trampling
the flowers of this Eden in the blood of civil strife and fratricidal
slaughter.
“Smith advanced to Covington,
causing consternation in Cincinnati. I
established and commanded the Confederate picket line in front of
Covington.
“The result of this campaign was the
evacuation of Nashville and Cumberland Gap by the Federals, the inauguration of
Hawes, Governor at Frankfort, the capture of Mumsfordville by Bragg, the
victory of Smith over Nelson at Richmond, and the bloody battle of
Perryville. This battle was fought by
Bragg after the Confederate retreat and Federal pursuit began. The Confederates captured a large number of
prisoners and arms, besides securing and sending out a vast amount of commissary
stores. Bragg returned to Murfreesboro;
Smith, to Knoxville, and the Federal army to Nashville. I resigned my seat in the Senate, at
Georgetown, Kentucky, in September, 1862, in time to elect a successor before
the meeting of the General Assembly.
Hon. James R. Brown was elected to fill the vacancy. I shall never cease to cherish kind and
tender memories of the hospitality of Kentucky Confederates. Riding along a street in Lexington,
literally covered with dust, a beautiful woman came out of a handsome cottage,
to the gate, and asked me to alight, ‘Come in and have breakfast.’ The want of harmony between her appearance
and mine induced me to make an effort to excuse myself, which proved
unavailing. I went in and met the
hospitality of a sparkling julep and a delightful breakfast, dispensed with the
charming grace, dignity, and elegance for which the sex is distinguished. I felt something of the sentiment which, I
suppose thrilled the heart of the Indian when he discovered the Alabama and
christened it into the name of ‘Here we rest.’
Near Paris, I was attacked violently with bilious fever. I was taken to the elegant home of Frank
Ford, who, with his good wife, gave me special attention and tender nursing for
eight or ten days; at the same time keeping up with the movements of the
opposing forces with the view of preventing my capture. Finally he informed me that the movements of
Woolford’s cavalry made it vital to me to leave. He put me into his buggy and drove me, in the night, a distance
of 20 miles to Lexington with a negro boy to ride a horse which he had given to
me. I found at the hotel a member of
Bragg’s staff, sick, and much exercised for his safety. The next afternoon I left Lexington in the
direction of Nicholasville, on horseback.
After proceeding five or six miles I broke down and could proceed no
further. I stopped at the home of
Elijah Bryan and remained here more than a week. Mr. Bryan had another guest, in the person of a pale, sick,
slender youth, who belonged to Churchill’s Brigade. He had been in the battle at Richmond. His age, size, and condition, with his intelligence, coolness,
and courage, impressed me greatly.
“The retreat of the Confederates was
a severe blow to Southern sympathizers.
As the Federals fell back and the Confederates advanced, they hoped the
war would be transferred across the Ohio.
They were jubilant at the coming and in tears at the departure of the
Confederate army. It was to them
unexpected and disappointing. Everybody
was on the qui vive for news. All sorts
of rumors were flying in every direction as to the movements of the troops of
the respective armies. Under the
observation and information of Mr. Bryan, I finally ascertained the location
and movement of my command, and convinced that if I escaped capture, no time
must be lost, I determined to make the effort to rejoin it. Mr. Bryan repeated precisely the kindness of
Mr. Ford, by putting a negro boy on my horse and taking me in his buggy, delivered
both at the bridge across the Kentucky River just as it was being set on fire
by order of the Confederates. With a
grateful heart, I bade my friend ‘good-bye,’ mounted my horse, and was the last
to cross the bridge. I held up better
than I expected that day, and stopped at a comfortable Kentucky home, where I
had some rest. I awoke in the morning
to find that someone during the night had swapped horses with me. My horse (the present from Mr. Ford) was
large, fat, and able. In his place I
found a very thin colt, utterly broken down, with a horrible sore back, and so
weak that it staggered in walking. The
only thing to be done was to take the chances with the colt. So, shortening my saddle-girth a few feet
and putting on the saddle, I mounted the crippled colt to escape the Federal
army. When I reached the command and
removed the saddle, the colt tumbled down, where it was left when the camp
moved. The comforts of that day’s
travel were not promoted by the kind (?) assurance of everyone I passed, or
met, that ‘I was gone up,’ that the ‘Yankees will get you.’ With my facilities for movement, it was
little tantalizing to be constantly advised as I was, to ‘hurry up.’ After resting a few days at Lenoir’s Station,
we were ordered to Readysville, and thence, on December 19th, took the train at
Tullahoma for Vicksburg, where we arrived on the evening of December 27th and
marched from the train into the line of battle at Chickasaw Bayou, where the
fight was in progress. I was in command
of the regiment. The troops on that
part of the line all next day (Sunday) were under constant fire of shells and
sharpshooters. ---About sun-up, I was
ordered to change the position of the regiment, and while moving to the new
position, was shot by a sharpshooter. I
was carried to the rear, and at night removed to the hospital at Vicksburg.
“Singular coincidences often occur. Maj. Humble of Louisiana was shot in the knee; Lt.-Col. Timmons of Texas, in the ankle, and I in the leg, equidistant from the knee and ankle, on the same day, and met at the hospital at night. Maj. Humble died that night. Lt.-Col. Timmons and I were removed to a private house in the suburbs of the city and placed in the same room. His foot was amputated and he died. The ball that hit me, ranged between the two bones of the limb, lodging in the knee joint, destroying the periosteum, caries of the bone succeeded, and gangrene in its most malignant type, supervened, defying arrest by the surgeons. The sloughing progressed with a rapidity and to an extent that was startling. Half a dozen army surgeons, upon consultation, adjudged the case hopeless, and so informed my wife by telegram. My hostess, Mrs. Eberline, told the doctors that pulverized loaf-sugar would arrest the sloughing, which of course they ridiculed. But when they surrendered the case as hopeless, they told her she could try her sugar. She pulverized a plateful, sifted it through a muslin cloth, and applied it to the wound. I never had any idea of the intensity of agony until then; the only way to conceive of it was to feel it. The third application entirely arrested the sloughing, and within two or three days the wound, which was a large and ghastly one, began a healthy granulation. It turned out that Mrs. Eberline was one of those inspired geniuses in the discovery of simple remedies for emergent ailments with which we sometimes, though rarely, met. That she was the human agent that saved my life, I have never entertained the slightest doubt. I have been thus particular in recording in detail, what may seem to others a very small matter, in the hope that sometime, somewhere, the facts may be of value to somebody. On March 8, 1863, occupying a litter, I was placed on the train under the care of that true soldier and faithful friend, M.H. Eakes, now a useful member of the North Georgia conference of the M.E. Church, south, and reached home a week later. During the year, with two exceptions, capture and death, I had passed through all the vicissitudes and experience of soldier life, of hunger and thirst, heat and cold, dust and mud, weary marches and sleepless bivouacs, sickness and wounds; and perhaps had suffered more, and done less, than any soldier in the Confederate service. Col. Harris was killed at Baker’s Creek. I was promoted to the Colonelcy and resigned. Kellogg was promoted and was wounded at New Hope; but, with Joseph E. Johnson, surrendered the shattered remnant of the Forty-third Georgia Volunteers at Greensboro, N.C. in 1865. Frank Simmons concealed the regimental flag and brought it home. He concealed it by wrapping it around his person, under his shirt. Its tattered fragments are now with the Archives of the Regimental Association.