April 1865 Three Years in the Life of Wt Bryant

APRIL 1862 – APRIL 1865

THREE YEARS IN THE LIFE OF

W. T. BRYANT

CONFEDERATE SOLDIER

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John A. Bryant

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Edited By

Brenda Bryant

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Instantpublisher.com Collierville, TN

2006 Cover : “The Battle of Vicksburg” Illustration Courtesy Son of the South, www.sonofthesouth.net

Extracts from Public Domain publications, previously copyrighted, are annotated in the text with original author/publisher.

Southern Cross of Honor letterhead herein is a Registered ® Trademark of the United Daughters of the Confederacy.

ISBN 1-59872-483-5

Printed in the United States of America by Instantpublisher.com Collierville, TN.

In memory of our brother J.W. who generated this interest in our great-grandfather.

3 4

W. T. (WILLIAM THOMAS) BRYANT MAY 13, 1846 – APRIL 13, 1929

6 Content

Special Thanks 9 A tribute: “The Confederate Soldier” 11 Introduction 17 I 1862 – The Beginning of W.T.’s Adventure 21 II The Fight at Tazewell 33 III The Kentucky Campaign 37 IV The Battle of Chickasaw Bayou 51 V The Battle of Port Gibson 55 VI The Battle of Champion’s Hill/Baker’s Creek 57 and Big Black River Bridge VII Vicksburg 63 VIII Parole and Exchange 71 IX Lookout Mountain and Missionary Ridge 79 X Change of Command and Wintering Over 91 at Dalton XI Atlanta Campaign–The Hundred Days Battle 95 Rocky Face Ridge Resaca Cassville New Hope Church Big Shanty Kennesaw Mountain Buckhead and Peachtree Creek Atlanta – The Siege Jonesboro XII Nashville Campaign 113 Decatur, Alabama Columbia

7 Franklin Nashville XIII Retreat to Tupelo 125 XIV The Carolina Campaign 131 Orangeburg, South Carolina Kinston – W.T. Wounded Bentonville – The Beginning of the End XV Surrender and Farewell 141 BGen Pettus’ Farewell Address 145 The Southern Cross of the Legion of Honor 147 Resolution W.T. Bryant – Southern Cross of Honor 151 Certification Epilogue – General John Brown Gordon, CSA 153 Acknowledgements 155

8 Special Thanks

Mr. Rex Miller for providing me with a copy of his book “Hundley’s Ragged Volunteers: a Day- by-Day Account of the 31 st Alabama Infantry Regiment, CSA (1861-1865).” This book greatly helped me to organize and validate the piles of notes and articles I had collected.

The United Daughters of the Confederacy: First of all for their work in recognizing the Confederate Veterans for their service so many years ago, and for maintaining records of that recognition. Secondly, for researching and providing me with a copy of my great-grand father’s “Southern Cross of Honor Certification”, and thirdly, to the UDC President General, for giving me permission to use the "Southern Cross of Honor Resolution."

University of North Carolina Library: For providing me with information and direction in finding Colonel Hundley’s book “Prison Echoes of the Great Rebellion.”

10 “The Confederate Soldier”

The stirring scenes and the dreadful carnage of a memorable conflict have been removed by the lapse of time into the hazy past, and a new generation, however ready it may be to honor those who fought the battles of the South, is likely to form its idea of their appearance from the conventional military type. The Confederate soldier was not an ordinary soldier, either in appearance or character. With your permission I will undertake to draw a portrait of him as he really appeared in the hard service of privation and danger.

A face browned by exposure and heavily bearded, or for some weeks unshaven, begrimed with dust and sweat, and marked here and there by the darker stains of powder - a face whose stolid and even melancholy composure is easily broken into ripples of good humor or quickly flushed in the fervor and abandon of the charge; a frame tough and sinewy, and trained by hardship to surprising powers of endurance; a form, the shapeliness of which is hidden by its encumberments, suggesting in its careless and unaffected pose a languorous indisposition to

11 exertion, yet a latent, lion-like strength and a terrible energy of action when aroused. Around the upper part of the face is a fringe of unkempt hair and above this an old wool hat, worn and weather-beaten, the flaccid brim of which falls limp upon the shoulders behind, and is folded back in front against the elongated and crumpled crown. Over a soiled shirt, which is unbuttoned and buttonless at the collar, is a ragged grey jacket that does not reach to the hips, with sleeves some inches too short. Below this, trousers of a nondescript color, without form and almost void, are held in place by a leather belt, to which is attached the cartridge box that rests behind the right hip, and the bayonet scabbard which dangles on the left. Just above the ankles each trouser leg is tied closely to the limb - a la Zouave - and beneath, reaches of dirty socks disappear in a pair of badly used and curiously contorted shoes. Between the jacket and the waistband of the trousers, or the supporting belt, there appears a puffy display of cotton shirt, which works out further with every hitch made by Johnny in his effort to keep his pantaloons in place. Across his body from his left shoulder there is a roll of threadbare blanket, the ends tied together resting on or

12 falling below the right hip. This blanket is Johnny's bed. Whenever he arises he takes up his bed and walks. Within this roll is a shirt, his only extra article of clothing. In action the blanket roll is thrown further back, and the cartridge is drawn forward, frequently in front of the body. From the right shoulder, across the body pass two straps, one cloth the other leather, making a cross with blanket roll on breast and back. These straps support respectively a greasy cloth haversack and a flannel-covered canteen, captured from the Yankees. Attached to the haversack strap is a tin cup, while in addition to some odds and ends of camp trumpery, there hangs over his back a frying pan, an invaluable utensil with which the soldier would be loath to part.

With his trusty gun in hand - an Enfield rifle, also captured from the enemy and substituted for the old flint-lock musket or the shotgun with which he was originally armed - Johnny Reb, thus imperfectly sketched, stands in his shreds and patches a marvelous ensemble - picturesque, grotesque, unique, the model citizen soldier, the military hero of the nineteenth century. There is none of the tinsel

13 or trappings of the professional about him. From an esthetic military point of view he must appear a sorry looking soldier. But Johnny is not one of your dress parade soldiers. He doesn't care a copper whether anybody likes his looks or not. He is the most independent soldier that ever belonged to an organized army. He has respect for authority, and he cheerfully submits to discipline, because he sees the necessity of organization to affect the best results, but he maintains his individual autonomy, as it were, and never surrenders his sense of personal pride and responsibility. He is thoroughly tractable, if properly officered, and is always ready to obey necessary orders, but he is quick to resent any official incivility, and is a high private who feels, and is, every inch as good as a general. He may appear ludicrous enough on a display occasion of the holiday pomp and splendor of war, but place him where duty calls, in the imminent deadly breach or the perilous charge, and none in all the armies of the earth can claim a higher rank or prouder record. He may be outré and ill- fashioned in dress, but he has sublimated his poverty and rags. The worn and faded grey jacket, glorified by valor and stained with the life blood of its wearer, becomes, in its immortality

14 of association, a more splendid vestment than mail of medieval knight or the rarest robe of royalty. That old, weather-beaten slouch hat, seen as the ages will see it, with its halo of fire, through the smoke of battle, is a kinglier covering than a crown. Half clad, half armed, often half fed, without money and without price, the Confederate soldier fought against the resources of the world. When at last his flag was furled and his arms were grounded in defeat, the cause for which he had struggled was lost, but he had won the faceless victory of soldiership.

“The Typical Confederate Soldier”, written by G.H. Baskett, Nashville, Tennessee. Published in Volume I, No. 12 of the Confederate Veteran , Dec. 1893.

15 16 IIIntroductionIntroduction

As a young boy growing up on a farm in Walker County, Alabama, on occasion, I heard daddy talk about his “pap”. He said that pap fought in the “War Between the States”. Well, we learned that pap to daddy was our great- grandfather. We knew our grandfather Bryant, but our great-grandfather had died long before any of us had come along. When papa Bryant died, daddy got a picture of an old man with a beard and a Bible on his knee, which from that time on, hung on the bedroom wall. I thought daddy was talking about the old man in the picture when he referred to “pap” and it was just left at that. It’s not that we didn’t believe him; I guess we just were not interested in those “old” things.

Sometime 30 years or more ago, our oldest brother J. W. became interested in our ancestors, and particularly our great- grandfather. Probably intrigued by the fact that he supposedly fought in the “War Between the States”, J. W., knowing where our grandfather had lived in Albertville and Arab, Alabama, started asking about the family. I think daddy

17 showed him where our great-grandfather was buried between Heflin and Arbacoochee. After daddy died in 1982, J. W. found a great uncle and several cousins who gave him some information and told him about various members buried in the old cemetery behind New Harmony Church. In it was our great-grandfather’s headstone, marked “Co. D, 31 st Alabama Infantry, CSA”. There is a Southern Cross of Honor carved in the headstone. He was also able to photograph a picture of our great-grandfather W. T., with the Southern Cross of Honor on his lapel. This obviously sparked the desire to learn more. J. W. went to the Department of Archives and History in Montgomery, where he was able to locate five transcript pages of our great- grandfather’s service record with Company D, 31 st Alabama Infantry, Confederate States Army.

One day, some years later while J. W. and I were visiting a Confederate Cemetery and Museum on the site of a Confederate Soldiers’ Home near Marbury, north of Prattville, we saw a part of a Southern Cross of Honor. This spurred our interest, so we proceeded to the Department of Archives and History and began searching. We found several things of interest, but nothing

18 connecting our great-grandfather with anything. Several years have past just wondering and having very little information about our great- grandfather. I now have the picture of the “old man with the beard” hanging on a bedroom wall along with a copy of the picture that J.W. took. Looking very similar, I just thought this picture and the one J.W. took were the same person at different ages, probably because they both had a beard. I was just recently told that the picture of the old man with the Bible on his knee is actually our great-great-grandfather Jason. As I now remember, I heard mama mention Jason on occasion, but it just did not register at the time. After what I considered a close comparison with the picture J.W. took of our great-grandfather W. T. and this one, at first I thought it could possibly be Jason. After studying this close family resemblance, and given the approximately thirty years age difference between the two pictures and other facts, I am convinced that this is in fact W.T., not Jason. It’s good to now get the “old man” in the proper place in the family and to know what daddy’s “pap” looks like.

With much more information available and much better methods available for research, I

19 decided to piece together the life of W. T. Bryant, Confederate Soldier.

This account is in no way intended to delve into the politics of the war, the command abilities or failures of military leaders, nor who should have or should not have done the things they did. The intent is to track the adventures and experiences of a teenage boy who became a man the hard way.

John A. Bryant, son of John W. Bryant son of John E. Bryant son of W. T. Bryant