Author Description

The following account of my experiences as a private soldier in the Confederate Army during the great war of 1861-'65 records only the ordinary career of an ordinary Confederate soldier. It does not treat of campaigns, army maneuvers, or plans of battles, but only of the daily life of a common soldier, and of such things as fell under his limited observation. Early in April, 1861, immediately after the battle of Fort Sumter, I joined the Palmetto Guards, Capt. George B. Cuthbert, of the Seventeenth Regiment South Carolina Militia. Very soon after, the company divided, and one half under Captain Cuthbert left Charleston, and joined the Second South Carolina Volunteers in Virginia. The other half, to which I belonged, under Capt. George L. Buist, remained in Charleston. Early in the fall Captain Buist's company was ordered to Coosawhatchie, and given charge of four howitzers; and thenceforth for three years, until December, 1864, it served as field artillery. I did not go with my company, as at that time I was a clerk in the Charleston post-office, and really exempt from all service. On April 2, 1862, however, then being about eighteen years of age, I resigned my clerkship, and joining the company at Coosawhatchie, with the rest of the men enlisted in the Confederate service "for three years or the war."