At
some point in 1892, an entrepreneurially minded journalist named S.A. Cunningham
had a great idea. Recovering from an illness, he decided to start a monthly magazine
for Confederate veterans.
Three decades after the Civil War, the first
issue of The Confederate Veteran came off the press in Nashville in January 1893.
The new publication, Cunningham explained, would be “an organ of communication
between Confederate soldiers and those… interested in them and their affairs,
and its purpose is to furnish a volume of information which will be accessible
to the public, even to those who fought on the other side.”
Texas
proved a target-rich environment for subscribers. The state was home to thousands
of native-born rebel veterans, plus thousands of other Confederate soldiers who
had moved to Texas since the war. Copies of The Confederate
Veteran swept into the Lone Star State like Sherman through Georgia.
“Although
I am very busy writing concerning incidents which have happened since I came to
Texas in 1846, I shall endeavor to spare time to
recommend the Veteran and procure subscribers,” wrote John S. Ford, who led Texas
troops in the final battle of the war at Palmetto Ranch in the Lower Rio Grande
Valley.
Ford endorsed the new magazine as “suited to the taste of Confederates.”
Those men, he continued, generally were “devoted to the South, and love the United
States with the fervency [of] a true patriot…, but they are not ready to forget
their efforts to establish a government upon the principles they sincerely believed
lay at the foundation of the Union.”
Veterans all over the state mailed
a dollar to Tennessee for a year’s subscription. Most of those old soldiers belonged
one of Texas’s 78 United Confederate Veterans camps.
The magazine quickly became a medium for rebel vets to express their views, urge
monuments for war heroes (including much content on a memorial to former President
Jefferson Davis), locate old comrades and remember their adventures and misadventures
as soldiers.
The
March 1893 issue included a story called “The Gray and the Blue: ‘We drank from
the same canteen.’” The anonymous author (possibly a veteran named William Taylor)
had served in Co. A of the 15th Texas Cavalry and participated in the Battle of
Chickamauga in Georgia.
Mustered into service May 20, 1862, the 15th had
been organized by Col. George H. Sweet, a one-time San
Antonio newspaperman who decided the sword could indeed be mightier than the
pen. Made up of men from Bexar, Dallas, Denton, Johnson, Limestone, Red River,
Tarrant, Van Zandt and Wise counties, later that year the regiment was converted
to infantry.
“Early on Saturday morning [Sept. 19, 1863] preparations
were made for the terrible conflict soon to follow,” the Texas
veteran wrote of his experiences at Chickamauga, the second bloodiest battle of
the war. “As the columns wheeled into line, I filled my canteen with water, replenished
my stock of ammunition, and was soon ready for the word ‘Forward.’”
Co.
A, with 105 officers and enlisted men, received orders to join a line of skirmishers
“and we were soon engaged in a rambling fire.” The rebels broke through their
Union counterparts and the blue coats retreated, leaving a scattering of dead
or wounded.
“I discovered immediately in front of me a soldier dressed
in blue, prostrate, and attempting to rise,” the author continued. “He turned
his eyes toward me, gave the Masonic sign of distress, and asked me for water.
I hastily placed his head on his knapsack, gave him my canteen…, and ran forward
to join my company.”
The Yankees gained reinforcements and the Texans
fell back over the previously contested ground. Seeing that the soldier he had
given his canteen to still lay on the field, the Texan checked on him again and
never forgot what he said: “Brother, something tells me that we will live through
this battle, and that we will some day meet again.”
Expecting him to die,
the rebel held the Yankee’s hand for a moment before going back to his company.
Returning to Texas after the war, he eventually married
“and began anew the battle of life.”
Twenty years later, he noticed this
newspaper ad:
“If the Confederate soldier belonging to company A of the
Fifteenth Texas, who gave a wounded Federal soldier a canteen of water during
the battle of Chickamauga, will write me at…Hotel, New Orleans, he will learn
something of interest to him. John Randolph.”
The Texan sent Randolph
a letter in care of the hotel and soon got a telegram urging him to visit. Having
had “a hard struggle in life,” the veteran had to borrow enough money to travel
to Louisiana.
When the Texan reached the hotel, the desk clerk directed
him to Randolph’s room, informing him that the guest lay in the final throes of
“consumption,” the disease now known as tuberculosis.
After the two former
battlefield foes shook hands, Randolph asked the Texan how he lost his canteen.
When his visitor finished his story, Randolph requested that another man in the
room bring him something from the closet. The man returned with a worn canteen
marked “J.W.T., Co. A, 15 Tex.” -
“I now return your property,” the terminally
ill Randolph said to the Texan, adding weakly, “My brother.”
Randolph,
who had prospered in business even as his one-time angel of mercy had struggled,
had one additional gift for him -- a bank draft for $10,000.
“When all
again was quiet,” the Texan concluded, “my friend coughed feebly, closed his eyes,
and slept the sleep that knows no waking.”
©
Mike Cox - May
23, 2013 column
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