The Dragoons of SCV Camp 1524 met for their monthly meeting on Thursday August 14th at the Masonic Lodge in downtown Prattville. Rob Schwartz
entertained everyone during the fellowship time before the meeting with traditional songs on his guitar. At 6:45, Commander Grooms welcomed everyone before Chaplain Brantley opened with an Invocation and Color Sgt Leverette led everyone in the pledges and saluted to the flags. Commander Grooms then read the SCV Charge before highlighting announcements and upcoming events including the Dixie butt sale, Autauga County Fair and the camp's fall muster. Compatriot Blake Dickinson
was sworn in as a new member by Chaplain Brantley and Commander Grooms, a cause for celebration.
Camp 1524's own Paul
Whaley gave an excellent but sobering presentation on what Lincoln's War was
like for the average soldier. He delivered personal accounts from the letters
and diaries of the men in the field. There were 425 General officers in the Confederate army and 23 different armies/commands. The Confederates were recognized to have incredibly talented Generals but you can't have great leaders such as these without troops. Paul has done reenactments for many years rising in those ranks from a private to a Colonel. He participated in the event at Gettysburg where 13000 men reenacted Pickett's charge, the Confederates charging and tearing down picket fences and getting mowed down attacking while Union forces 5 and 6 deep reloaded rifles and passed them forward.
It was extremely difficult as a Confederate soldier with the deprivations and conditions. Paul read an account from a soldier who fought at Allatoona Pass in October of 1864. Thirty men in his company charged into a hail of bullets and immediately 28 dropped leaving just him and one other soldier. He was hit in the hand and then the other remaining soldier was hit by a mini-ball. He held the dying man in his arms when another shot hit his friend in the head. Amazing, shocking and terrifying certainly for the soldier being so close to and witnessing death so intimately. The manner of death was frequently gruseome with arms and legs strewn over battlefields or shattered on the wounded. The 50 caliber balls left gaping wounds and would spray entrails and brains about when they struck soldiers in the abdomen and head. Men lost entire jaws and survived. Bayonet and sword wounds. Crushed by horses and wagons. Impaled by wood splintered and metal from cannon shell fragments.
Food was often scarce and in unsanitary spoiled condition most often in the field. The soldiers would bake cornbread using spoiled meal which often had worms. Biscuits were fashioned with rudimentary ingredients; hardtack was the usual. Pickled or brined beef was a common meat when available along with pork fatback and some bacon which was sometimes used over and over again to grease cooking pans until it became a hard briquette. Black eyed peas sometimes made into hoppin' john, sweet potatoes, cabbage, and rice were available on occassion. Coffee was made from wood bark and horse feed boiled in water. Poor diet led to sickness and death.
In 1864 Confederate General Hood led troops thru Decatur AL toward Tennessee, 135 miles in 7 days. After fighting all day in Decatur, the troops endured freezing rain which soaked them clad in threadbare clothes. Shirts and pants and jackets were unwashed for long periods and often ragged with many holes. The men would dig shallow holes and spoon to conserve body heat. Many went without socks and shoes lost soles and some would go barefoot. This area in late 1864 was controlled by guerilla bands of deserters who would bushwhack the Confederate soldiers as they moved thru picking and sniping them off.
Many soldiers died in hospitals for lack of proper care, modern medicine and sanitation. The Union Army had 11000 surgeons while the Confederates had only about 2000 doctors. Chronic diarrhea and viruses killed many who had to live together in the field and in hospitals. Filthy latrines would have a sparse layer of dirt spread over the defecation daily but often soldiers in camp would just leave their tent and relieve themselves in the middle of camp. The stench of gangrene and putrid odor from wounds and chamberpots would waft thru hospitals. More died from wounds and disease in the 7 weeks following the battle at Corinth MS than died in the two day bloodbath at Shiloh.
The battle flags were used to communicate troop positions and rally charges during battles. But those colorbearers carrying the flags were targets. Paul shared an account of one colorbearer being hit by 40 bullets. Often in battles, three or four colorbearers would fall in quick succession in the hail of bullets attempting to plant the flag on a rise.
