I recently finished reading Diary of A Confederate Soldier, a daily civil war journal by John S. Jackman, a Kentuckian who served in the Army of Tennessee from 1862 to 1865. In it he writes about his time spent in eastern Bedford County during the spring of 1863 following the Battle of Murfreesboro. He also writes about a near miss on a train ride from Wartrace over Cumberland Mountain south of Cowan.
Jackman served with the 5th. Kentucky--the Orphan Brigade as it was later called. He was educated and literate. We join the soldier in an April entry as his unit leaves Manchester for Beechgrove. It's reprinted here, grammatical errors and all.
April 23rd. - Broke up camp at Manchester and marched to Beechgrove, twelve miles toward Murfreesboro. Camped in a clover field. The hills around here remind me of Kentucky. They're covered with such pastures and beautiful groves of beech trees which are now leafing out. Springtime is once again coming over the hills with gaiety and song.
Beechgrove, in other days, had a country grocery and post office. There's a nice church which is still used as a place of worship.
April 25th. - Moved camp two miles down the creek and pitched our tents on a ridge in a grove of beech trees. Beautiful prospect from camp. Can see for miles over gentle undulating fields and green pastures on the one hand; on the other, is stern mountain scenery. The yeomen are at work. The merry whistles which the farmer boy sends up from the field does not accord with our shrill fifes. Neither do our occupations.
May 1st. - Moved to Jacob's Store, a mile and a half on the (Manchester) pike at the south end of Hoover's Gap.
May 2nd. - Our regiment thrown forward as advanced infantry and camped one mile in the gap. Our camp is in a pleasant place. On either side of the pike are hills mountain high. Our division is to defend this place.
May 5th. - Climbed a high hill near camp and could see Murfreesboro seventeen miles off. Also the smoke rising from the camps of the Army of the Cumberland about the place. Far beyond could see the blue hills bordering the Cumberland River. I remained nearly all day admiring the grand scenery about me.
May 23rd. - Order came after night to cook rations, preparatory for a move the next morning.
May 24th. - Had reveille early, loaded baggage and moved out. Very hot day and we had to march twelve miles to Wartrace, on the Nashville & Chattanooga Rail Road, where we arrived shortly after twelve noon and bivouacked near the town in a wood. All the boys suspected that the brigade was ordered to Mississippi and were grumbling a great deal; not liking to make another summer campaign in that state.
Shortly after we stacked arms General Breckenridge sent around an order for all the brigade to assemble at brigade headquarters on a given signal; that he wished to speak to the boys. We fell in without arms and the regiments were drawn up about the general. He got up on a stump and commenced by telling them that he had received orders from General Bragg to report at Wartrace with all of his division save that portion composed of Tennessee troops and hold himself in readiness to move on the (railroad) cars. He said that he was not to receive further orders until he reached Atlanta but that he had a pretty good idea where they were going; and that he supposed the boys could also guess at their destination.
May 25th. - At 6 PM all of our regiment got on the train, save one or two companies, and we were very much crowded. The train ran away with the engineer while coming down the mountain near the tunnel (Cumberland Mountain south of Cowan). The grade is steep and seven miles long and we ran the seven miles in four minutes and a half. I was sitting on a camp stool in the center of the car and could hardly keep my seat. The moon was just sinking behind the mountains and as I watched it, as it skipped from crag to crag, I thought, "Farewell old moon. I'll never see you again." We thought any moment the car would be dashed to pieces against the rocks or be pitched off some of the cliffs and be ground into dust.
At last the train was stopped and word came forward that the hind most car, on which was Company C, had smashed up or was missing at least. We all expected to see the last men killed or badly hurt and our surgeon started back to find them. I went back also.
The car flew to pieces just as the train was at the bottom of the grade. No two pieces of it were left together. But fortunately, though some of the boys were hurt, not a man was killed nor a limb broken. One little fellow that was on top of the car was thrown clear over the telegraph wire into a bramble of briars; receiving no worse injury than being powerfully scratched.
John Jackman's diary records his experiences, including a serious head wound from a mortar fragment, right up to the end when Jefferson Davis and his fleeing cabinet meet for the last time at Washington, Georgia.
After surrender to the Federal Army and parole, Jackman passes through Wartrace a second time on May 19, 1865. This time it's a journey to his home near Bardstown after being gone as a Confederate soldier for three years, eight months and four days.
'Til I knock on your door again, that the news from the little town where time stands still.
Jerry Fox
Wartrace, Tennessee 2006
