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Chapter 14: autumn of 1862.
Let us now turn to the Army of the West and gather up a few of the precious relics that lie scattered over that wide field.
After his masterly evacuation of
Corinth, and the concentration of the army at
Tupelo,
General Beauregard, worn down by excessive toil, asked to be relieved from duty in order to recruit his shattered health, and
General Bragg was placed in chief command.
In the month of October, the
Confederates, under
General Van Dorn, made an attempt to retake the town of
Corinth, which was held by the
Federals with a heavy force.
The attack was very determined, and for a time promised to be successful; our forces fought their way to the very centre of the town, but the strong works and terrific fire of the enemy forced them to retire at the very moment when victory seemed within their grasp.
Our men, especially the Missourians, under
Gen. Price, fought with unsurpassed bravery, and the blood of hundreds of the noblest and best enriches the ground on which
Corinth stands.
The Federals attempted to cut off the retreat of our army by throwing a heavy column to the south of
Corinth, but the genius and experience of
Gen. Price completely foiled their plans, and brought the shattered battalions of the
South to a position where they could make a successful stand.
The march of
General Bragg from
Mississippi into
Tennessee, and the events that followed, are so well known that we need not do more than make such reference to them as may be essential in keeping up the thread of our narrative.
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The marching and maneuvering of both armies, Confederate and Federal, ended in the
battle of Perryville on the 8th of October.
The desperate valor of the
Southern troops bore down all opposition on this bloody field, and after driving the enemy before them and camping for the night on the field of battle,
General Bragg deeming it hazardous with his wearied men to renew the conflict with the heavily reinforced army of the
Federals, withdrew in good order to
Harrodsburg, and thence to
Bryantsville.
In his official report,
General Bragg says of this battle: “For the time engaged, it was the severest and most desperately contested engagement within my knowledge.
Fearfully outnumbered, our troops did not hesitate to engage at any odds, and though checked at times, they eventually carried every position and drove the enemy about two miles.”
Many a Christian hero fell in this sanguinary battle, but among them all none offered a purer life on the altar of his country than
Thomas Jefferson Koger, of
Alabama.
He was a pious, zealous, eminently useful minister of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, and for nearly twenty years had been a member of the
Alabama Conference.
At the close of his term as Presiding Elder on the Columbus District, he entered the army of the
South as a private in the ranks, but was afterwards appointed chaplain.
In reference to his entrance upon a military life, exchanging the quiet round of ministerial duties for the bustle and toil of a soldier's life, we must let him speak in his own vindication, if any be needed.
In a letter to his dear friend,
Rev. 0.
R. Blue, he says:
I go from a deliberate conviction that it is my duty to go. It is under these feelings alone I leave my family.
I go, trusting in God to bless and prosper me in the just cause.
Pray for me.
To his wife, writing from
Bowling Green, he says: “As to the cause of my absence, I think there need be no apprehension.
There is
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as much need of preachers and preaching here as in any place I have ever been yet; and I try to maintain my place as a Christian minister as earnestly and heartily as I ever did. It is a mistake to suppose that men in arms are beyond the reach and influence of the gospel.
They are not; and the gospel is the only refining and elevating influence operating on them.
Wife, children, home and its endearments, are only sweet memories here-not actual restraints, as they are when present.
And then, the sick are always open to religious impressions.”
At the expiration of the term of service of the regiment which he served as chaplain, he returned home, and at once set to work to raise a company for the war. It was his wish to return to the army as chaplain, but the person who was expected to take command of the new company having declined only the day before the election, he was the unanimous choice of the men for captain.
Having been mainly instrumental in raising the company, he did not feel at liberty to decline, and thus unexpectedly he found himself regularly enrolled as a soldier.
He carried the spirit of his Master with him into the camp; he prayed with his men every night, and preached to them on Sabbath whenever circumstances permitted.
He maintained his integrity, and never compromised on any occasion his character as a minister of
Christ.
His men loved him devotedly, and always showed him the highest respect.
The thoughts of this good man have a melancholy interest now after the storm of war is hushed, and we look back on the past as on a horrible dream.
From the camp he wrote:
No man leaves wife and children more reluctantly than myself.
But I have made up my mind to do it, and must bear it. I am trying to lead a godly life, and do good as best I can in my place as an officer and minister of the gospel.
I feel that I am in the way of duty, and can ask God's best blessing on my work.
I am a soldier for consciencea sake.
I am here because duty calls me,
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and for no other reason.
If it were not the path of duty, I should utterly loath the interminable, never-ceasing confusion of camp life.
Again referring to his position as a soldier:
I could not be a soldier unless conscience approved.
It is only when my own land is invaded, my wife and children endangered, that I dare bear arms; and then, when interests so vital, so personal, are at stake, it is only by effort I could remain at home.
With a cheerful and buoyant spirit he endured the privations and fatigues of military life, sustained by such a noble and chivalric sense of duty.
His march to
Perryville was his last.
After his regiment was drawn up in line of battle, his
Colonel, passing along the line, observed him writing, and asked what he was doing.
He replied, “Writing to my wife.”
This hurried note, written on the edge of battle, was the last message of love to his family.
It was cut short by the order “Forward,” and at the head of his men he plunged into the fight.
His sword was shattered in his hand by a ball, and the next moment another pierced his body.
He fell and died on the field.
After the battle, two of his faithful soldiers, at their own request, were detailed to bury him, and while performing this sad duty were captured by the enemy.
One who knew him well and loved him (
Rev. J. B. Cottrell, of
Alabama), draws his character in a few meaning lines:
T. J. Koger will not again meet in Conference with us. Few of our number would be more missed.
A very peculiar man in appearance, and a peculiarly true and earnest soul, he was most highly esteemed by us all. Few men ever loved the Church better, or were more at home in her councils or at her altars.
He was popular among his brethren, and popular among the people.
Perfectly fearless, he avoided no duty or responsibility.
In every respect he was reliable. On the battle-field of Perryville he fell, attesting his devotion to his native
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South.
He was one of the few men who could have gone on to any position in the service in which he fell, and afterwards have come back to the work of a Methodist preacher.
One bright, sunny spirit less-we'll miss and lament him.
On this hard-fought field the private soldiers, unknown to fame, fought and died like heroes.
An eye-witness writes:
A Christian soldier was pierced by a minie-ball in the left breast during the first charge of our troops at Perryville, and, in reply to a friend who proffered him assistance, said: ‘No, I die. Tell my parents I die happy.
On, on to victory.
Jesus is with me, and can give me all the help I need.’
A gasp, a shudder, and all was over-all of this world's pain and sorrow.
The constant movements of the armies in the
West, after the battles of
Corinth and
Perryville, were unfavorable to the cause of religion among the soldiers.
But in all the camps there were devout men who maintained their Christian character unsullied, and who, by example and precept, strove to lead their comrades to
Christ.
One of the hindrances to the work of God was found in the passion for speculation and extortion that possessed the souls of thousands in the army and out of it. A writer in one of the religious papers, speaking of the condition of society in
Western Georgia, said in November, 1862:
Speculators and extortioners are, true to their instincts, ravaging this country, monopolizing every article of prime necessity as soon as it begins to get a little scarce.
They seem to have forgotten the awful denunciations of God's word against all such characters and proceedings.
Against this base desire of gain at home, the
South had to fight as hard as against her avowed enemies on the battle-field.
The spirit of prayer that prevailed among our soldiers
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impressed even the minds of our opponents.
In an interview with a committee sent by a convention at
Chicago, comprising Christians of all denominations, to urge the abolition of slavery,
President Lincoln said:
The rebel soldiers are praying with a great deal more earnestness, I fear, than our own troops, and expecting God to favor their side; for one of our soldiers, who had been taken prisoner, told Senator Wilson, a few days since, that he met with nothing so discouraging as the evident sincerity of those he was among in their prayers.
In the midst of the grief that wrung the hearts of our people, they did not forget to call upon God for the restoration of peace to their unhappy country.
A lady, one of those noble specimens of humanity that hovered like angels of mercy around the sick and wounded soldiers in the hospitals, or toiled for them in the silent and forsaken homes of the
South, appealed to her sisters to devote one day, the 1st of December, 1862, to prayer for the restoration of peace.
From
Chapel Hill, N. C., she sent forth her appeal: “On that day, at 12 o'clock, let every woman's heart be lifted in prayer for her country.
Let the sick woman on her bed remember the day and hour; let the busy forego her business; and, I was going to say, let the gay suspend her gaiety, but I trust there are no gay women in the
South now; but let the young, beautiful, and hopeful, equally with those who can lay no claim to such titles, think of the dead, and the dying, and the mangled, think of the brokenhearted, the destitute, the homeless, think of the widows, the fatherless, the childless, of this awful war, and let every true-hearted woman be stirred to pray as with one voice on that day to God for help and for peace-an honorable peace.”
To this appeal of the soldiers' truest friend, a soldier added his appeal from “the edge of battle :”
“We hope that no wife or mother or sister in the
Confederate
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States will permit the call to go by unheeded.
It is becoming that they, whose hands have not been imbrued with blood, should present this great petition to the throne of our Heavenly Father.
Soldiers and countrymen, of whatever rank or station, let me suggest that we also unite with those mothers, wives, and sisters, on that day, and in that hour, to pray that the hand of the
Destroying Angel may be stayed before we all are sunk in hopeless ruin.
Let the workman close his shop; the merchant his store.
Let all the trade and business of every description be deserted.
Let the soldier retire to the silent grove, or unite in prayer with his pious comrades in the tent.
Let the sentinel plead for it in his silent tread, and the sick soldier upon his lonely couch.
Let Heaven be emphatically besieged on that day by the entreaties and supplications of earnest souls, for peace — an honorable peace.
Oh! my countrymen, remember, only one hour of that time which is not yours, but God's, is all that is asked for, in which to unite with those whom we love (and who have shown in a thousand ways their love to us), to plead with the throne of Jehovah, for the inestimable blessings of peace and independence upon us and our posterity.
God has told us that where even two or three of his children unite in asking a blessing he will give it to them in a special manner.
Oh! my countrymen, will he shut those ears which are ever so ready to catch the first breathing of a penitent soul?
will he, I say, shut them against the earnest cry of a penitent nation?
On one remarkable occasion, when our Saviour was in great trouble, as we are now, he asked his disciples to watch and pray with him one hour.
Shall he have to upbraid us, as he did them, with those sorrowful but tender words, ‘What, could ye not watch and pray one hour?’
Oh! blessed Saviour!
help us so to watch and pray, in
that hour, as that we may prevail with thee, and secure the blessings of a speedy peace to our tempest-tossed and war-worn people.
Speak
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the word only, thou Son of God, to this great tempest, ‘Peace, be still,’ and there will be a great calm.”
The approach of winter caused a cessation of military operations on a large scale.
General Bragg lay with his army in
Middle Tennessee, covering several important strategic points;
General Kirby Smith was in
East Tennessee;
General Pemberton was in the vicinity of
Holly Springs, Miss.; while smaller bodies of troops were scattered over the country for the defence of the vast lines of communication with the
East and the
South.
In all these camps, the chaplains and colporteurs were at work preaching the word, circulating religious papers, tracts, and portions of the
Holy Scriptures, and thus sowing the seeds of that great revival which, later in the war, swept through the armies of the
West like fire in dry stubble.
It has been often said that the
Southern people rushed into the war without reflection, and without pausing to think of the awful calamities it would bring with it. This may have been so with many, but it was not so with all. The great minds of the
South knew well what was involved in war, war in its worst type-civil war. In the autumn of this year (1862),
Bishop James 0.
Andrew, of the
M. E. Church, South, in an address to his Church, urging a full and cordial maintenance of the
Christian ministry in time of war, uttered this prophecy, which the venerable man lived to see fulfilled: “We have as yet scarcely seen the half of the evils which this war is bringing on us. To be sure, there is sorrow enough, and poverty and lack of bread enough; in many, very many instances we have extortion and bankruptcy enough, and sufficient manifestations of heartlessness to make us sick of earth and most of — its associations; yet these are not all, nor even a tithe of the evils which we suffer from the war.”
The
Bishop laments that “the tendency of a state of things in which war is the chief subject of thought and glorification is to exalt military studies and pursuits
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above everything else, and thus leave but little room for the cultivation of meekness, humility, gentleness, and faith and love, which constitutes the religion of the blessed
Jesus; and, as these do not thrive well in a warlike atmosphere, there is great danger of losing, or, at least, very greatly abating, the spirituality and the power of the religion of the
Church, and subtracting very materially from the respect which many professed Christians in the
Confederacy have for all the institutions in the
Church, and especially for the ministers of religion.”
All previous wars, with hardly an exception, afforded ground for such a conclusion; but the great anomaly of our war was, that while religion may have languished at home, in the armies it flamed out with a power and brilliancy unheard of before in the annals of civil strife and bloodshed.
This great fact came to view more clearly as the conflict deepened, and no man rejoiced in it more than did the eminent and venerable
Bishop Andrew.
At this day there are ministers of
Christ of high talents and great usefulness, who were born of God amidst the smoke and flame of battle, and who heard the call of the Spirit to a nobler warfare above the rattle of musketry and the roar of cannon.
And with these there stand now in the ranks of the laity, filling honorable and useful offices in the Church of God, their comrades, who, in the midst of like scenes, “tasted of the good word of God and the powers of the world to come.”
Mingled with sad remembrances of the great struggle, they have a joyous recollection of the time and the place when peace was planted in the soul on the field of blood.
The gladness of that happy day,
Oh, may it ever, ever stay!
