CALLING FOR VOLENTURS TO GO TO WAR
They began know to call for volenteers to go to war. This war had been brewing for 30 years. I remember hearing my Pa and Grand pa talk of the war when I was a little boy but did not think I would be in it. The caus and result of this war, you can learn from historys of it in books.
They had a big dinner in June and made war speeches and after speaking, I got a fife, some one a kittle drum. We marched around 2 or 3 times, there was 12 or 15 men marching behind us, while there was hundreds of stout men on the grounds. They could not stand the racket, then some one got up and made another war speech and told them he was going to send for a lot of hoop skirts and fine bonnets, dress the men up and put them in the parlor.
I could not stand that and I and Alonzo Quinn went home to Champagnolle, Union Co. to join some company and go to war. Though I must say, I went to keep from being called a coward. While all said we would whip them in a month or 2 and be home again. I did not see it that way and if I had known as much then as I do now, I would not have fired a gun in it, for I do not believe we had a right to seceed from our mother government and build up one of our own with mutual agreement. But I was not quite 20 years old and did not know the what we was fighting for. Nor did half of the rest of the soldiers. It was a rich man's war and the poor man's fight. When I look back at it now, I compare it this way, viz. If my little boy was to say "fine, I am going to sceed from your family government and set up a government of my own" in other words, do as I please and still live in the same family. We had about that much right and that much power to subjigate the North. Still I spent 4 years of the prime of my life fighting for my glorious country.
So when I and Alonzon got home, Paul Carrington was organizing a Co. which we joined. O what excitement! If you are ever so unfortunate as to go 1,000 or 2,000 miles away to kill or be killed, you will realize my feeling at this time. When I had bid them all good by, some for the last time no dought.
ON OUR WAY TO RICHMOND, VA. TO KILL YANKEES
Pa said to me, "Lorenzo, I will never see you again." I said, "Why Pa they say we will whip them and be home in a month." Pa said, "If I did not get killed, I would die, I was so weakly." When I got 40 or 50 yards, I looked back and saw Pa's head and shoulders over the hill, he started one end of the train while I went the other, on my way to El Dorado to join my Co.
Sure enough Pa did not see me any more, but he did not think doubtless, that he would die before I did.
The company which was from all over the county, met in El Dorado, with their guns, pistols & butcher knives they had made at the shop out of files from 15 to 20 inches long hanging at their sides. O how we was going to kill yanks. What an idea we had of war. We had no use for them, for we hardly ever got close enough to them to use them. We threw them away or sent them home. What parting of friends. My sweetheart, Miss Bettie Agre of Camden, was there. How it tore my heart strings to grip her sweet little hands, maybe the last time, but such is war and we marched away to Monroe, La.
We was to take the cars (railroad cars) next morning, the first I had seen since I was 8 years old. They put us on old flats. When she started off so slow and easy and began to get faster and faster that I thought the thing had got loose and was running away and they could not stop it. I stuck to my seat like a leach till I saw some of the soldiers standing up. I thought I was as good a soldier as any of them and rose to my feet, when off went my nice cap that sooted me so well.. We had not got our uniforms yet.
On to Vixburg we rode without any trouble, crossed the Miss. River on a steam ferry boat. There in Vixburg, I saw my first fight. A man by the name of Alford, knocked a man by the name of Martin down at the well where we was getting water, for some trivial offence. I do not remember what. Here I saw the first cannon. We mounted another car and started to Jackson, Miss. We ran a mile a minute, they said. From Jackson, we went to Chattanooga, Tenn. From there to Bristol, Tenn. Here we lay over and elected Co. officers to wit: Randolph Long, Captain; Paul Covington, first Lieutenant. Dr. Ponder, 2nd Lt., I can't remember 3rd Lt. but I remember they honored me with 2nd Sargents office. My business was to take charge of men on picket duty, making brest works, changing the gards and in the first Sargents absence, to call the rowl, draw rashions for the Co. and c. With a salery of 18 dollars per mo, while privates got but eleven. There is also first, 2nd, 3rd and 4th corporel in each company with a salary of 13 and 14 dollars per mo., whose duty it is to take charge of fatigue parties and c.