A Rebel Yells by Michael R. Bradley [Note: In this speech, "Why They Fought" I assessed the motives of such men as Charles Jarrell and D.C. Jackson. This story follows the Confederate career of Private Charles Jarrell of the 24th Tennessee Volunteer Infantry, Army of Tennessee, and briefly, of Dibbrel's Cavalry. I have told this story in the first person and therefore fictionalized the conversation. The facts of the story are true.] GREATER LOVE NO MAN HAS THAN THIS The old man leaned heavily on his stick and the boy beside him caught his hand. It was Memorial Day, June 6, 1922. No, that is the right date, Memorial Day--- Confederate Memorial Day. They walked across the uneven ground of the country grave yard; hills rolling away to the horizon, wild flowers blooming around the fence where they had not been cut, mocking birds singing in the cedars. "That he is," said the old man. "My daddy, yore great-grandaddy. Yo daddy and you is both named fer him. He was kilt at Chickamauga on the twentieth of September in 18 and 63. Hit wuz love that kilt him, I recken, as shore as the Yankee cannon ball that hit 'em square in the chest. "And hit wuz love that brought him back here and put up that stone over him. Though, truth to tell, he warn't never brung back here. They ain't really nothin' of my Daddy down thar 'cept some scraps of cloth and a few buttons. "I recken you done got confused by what I'm tellin' you. Les sit on that bench fer a few minutes and I'll 'splain hit fer ye. "My Daddy was born in 1821. He got married about 1840 and I was born that next year. Yore great uncle Jess come along in '43 and us two boys growed up on the ole home place whar I'm livin' now. We did all right on that place. Didn't have a lot of cash money but we paid the taxes, met our bills, and had plenty to eat. "In February of 18 and 61 Tennessee voted on whether or not to leave the Union. Daddy voted "no" and so did most of the rest around here 'cause we didn't want no war. But come April ole Abe Lincoln called for volunteers to put down the South when Fort Sumter wuz fired on and Lincoln wanted a bunch from Tennessee to fight for him. So we voted again in June and this time all the voters reckened we had war on our hands whether we wanted one er not, so Tennessee seceded. "Now, Daddy he said I could join up and him and Jess would stay home and get the crop in 'fore they joined too and that's jest whut we done. I taken the best saddle hoss we had and joined a calvary unit under Colonel Dibrell. That Fall Daddy give Jess the other hoss and sent him whar I wuz so's I could keep an eye out on him. Then Daddy joined the infantry. Think about that now. A forty year old infantryman. "Daddy's regiment seen it all. They slogged through the mud gettin' back out of Kentucky when Grant captured Fort Donelson. They retreated from Bowling Green, Kentucky, to Decatur, Alabama, and Daddy walked every blessed step of the way. Cold, rain, snow, mud, short of sleep and not too much grub but he kept up with the rest. They did get to ride rail cars from Decatur to Corinth, Mississippi, and then they walked for three days in the rain to get up to Shiloh. Daddy wuz right in the thick of that fight, his regiment holped run the Yankees out of the Hornets Nest on the first day and they was among the last drove off the field on the second day when the Yanks got reinforced. "Back at Corinth that old man spent a solid month helpin' dig trenches and build fortifications whilst all around him young men wuz dropin' like flies from measles and mumps and such as that. He got to ride the train cars again from Tupelo to Chattanooga when ole Braxton Bragg decided to give up Corinth and try and go around the end of the Yankees to get up in to Kentucky. He may have rode at fust but he walked from Chattanooga nearly up to the Ohio River, fought in the Battle of Perryville, and walked plum back to Chattanooga again. That is a right smart walkin', fer a old man and a good fit of hit wuz in the mountains. "Daddy's regiment got sent up to Murfreesboro and, at the end of December of 18 and 62 he fought in the Battle of Stones River, clawed through them cedar thickets, charged them Union lines, never got a scratch! Ole Bragg's nerve failed him, though, and he fell back to Tullahoma and that put us back in our home county. "Now through all them months of ,service and all them miles of marchin' every time the army would stop fer even a day or two, me and Jess would look up and here would come Daddy. No matter how far he had marched ner how little he'd had to eat he had to come check on his boys. He wuz always concerned about us and he let us see by what he done jest how much he loved us. You know, our whole Confederate army wuz like that. Hit was made up of kinfolks and neighbors and they wuz constant visitin' back and forth to see how everybody wuz makin' out. "While we wuz building breastworks up to Tullahoma, there wuz a general medical inspection and Daddy wuz discharged as not bein' fit fer service. He wuz gettin' on toward forty three years old and bein' out in the weather all the time had caused him to come down with rumatiz. So Daddy went on back home and set in to get the farm in shape. That Spring us two boys got a furlough and holped get the plowin' done and a crop in 'foie we had to come back to the Army." July of that year Bragg jest plain got flummoxed by that Vnion general named Rosecrans and Bragg lit a shuck clean back to North Georgia. Me and Jess, of course, went but Daddy wuz here with Momma behind Yankee lines. I recken they wuz left purty much alone not bein' real clost to no towns and bein' back off the railroad too. Daddy taken care of the crops and Momma worked the garden and put up all the stuff she could, but they waddn't no way we could stay in touch with one another. The whole Yankee Army wuz betwixt and between us down in North Georgia and them up here in Coffee County. Jest now and then somebody would drop off down into north Alabama and carry a sack of letters to us in the army and then a few days later, they'd go back home with a sack of letters from us in the army to the home folks. Even then they waddn't no post office to collect the letters fer us nor to get ours out to the ones we'd wrote to. But hit wuz better than no system at all." "Well, Daddy got the crop laid by and he allowed as he'd purely love to see us boys. He knowed whut army life wuz like and he sho' knowed folks got kilt when fightin' come along and he must of spent a good deal of time worryin' over his boys. So he tole Momma to fix up some good winter clothes fer us and as much good stuff to eat as could be carried on a horse with him 'cause he aimed to pay us a visit. "So Mamma lit in and about the end of August Daddy sold out to come find us. That waddn't as hard as you might think. If you stayed off the main roads and kept an eye out fer patrols, the Yankees waddn't gonna be too much-trouble. They waddn't too thick on the ground that fur behind the front lines and, besides, Daddy knowed how armies operated. "Hit taken Daddy near about ten days to wind around through the hills and get across the Tennessee River and then go fur enough south to bypass the Yankees, but September the eigth he come grinnin' and whistlin' down Lookout Mountain and into camp. Me and Jess wuz off on a scout with some more of the hoss soljers but we got to camp on the eleventh and, Lord, what a reunion we had! Captain Colyar let me and Jess off most of our duty so's we could see Daddy as much as possible and the good eats Momma had sent wuz mighty welcome to us Rebs. "Daddy fust said he meant to stay a week but hit wuz purty clear to us all that a battle wuz shapin' up and Daddy allowed he'd stay till that wuz over. If he left fore hit wuz fought, he said he'd jest be wonderin' how we'd made out and if'n we wuz all right. So he stayed. "Rosecrans had done figgered he'd got too strung out too fur down in to Georgia and he wuz shiftin' his troops back towards Chattanooga and Bragg wuz tryin' to head him off. On the nineteenth day of September, 1863, us two armies kinda bumped together along Chickamauga Creek and the fightin' spread like fire in a sage grass field. "In most armies cavalry did scoutin' and then got out of the way when the infantry and artillery got to goin', but we wuz a part of Bedford Forrest's command and ole Bed didn't know how to stay out of a fight. Now, what we done wuz to ride our hosses till we got clost to the Yanks, then one man would hold four hosses and the other three would go fight. So Daddy said he'd hold the hosses and that suited me, and Jess. We left Daddy and the other hoss holders down behind a little ridge and we crossed to fight thq Yanks on the fur side. Hit wuz a purty hot fight and we'd been at hit fer nigh a hour when I looked up and thar was Daddy. He'd taken a rifle and cartridge box off'n a dead man and come sailin' on in to the fight. "Who's minding the hosses?' I ast him. "Tied 'em to a saplin', 'he sez. If’n we whup them we can go get the hosses when ever we want. If'n they whup us we ain't gonna need no hosses atall' "Well, I will allow that ole man could shoot. I know fer certain of two Yanks he brought down at nigh a hundard yards when he got a clear shot at 'em. And I don't know how many more he might have hit jest shootin' into the smoke from their rifles. "Bout dark the battle kindly played out and some infantry sojers come along to take our place. We got our hosses and pulled back a little ways fer some supper and some rest but we didn't get too much of neither one. Too much comin' and goin' of wounded and reinforcements and what not fer restin'. Soon as hit wuz light we heared the battle start up again, but this time we wuz sent way off to our right flank to see if'n we could find a way around the Yankees. We wuz workin' our way along slow when way off to our left we heared a god-awful yell go up and the Yanks jest went ascurryin'. That wuz General Longstreet and his boys from Virginny. They had done found a hole in the Yankee lines and they commenced to tear up Jack! "Purty soon all the Yanks wuz gone cept fer some up on a ridge back a piece from whar they had started out. Them Yanks wuz a stubborn bunch and acted like they intended to stay up thar awhile. And they did. They wuz some fierce fightin' up thar fer a while and many a good man on both sides breathed his last on that ridge. But ole Bedford kept on easin' us on to the right and fore too long them last Yankees had to get out or get caught by us so they got out. "And then they wuz a fox chase! Down the road to Chattanooga the Yankees went and us right in behind 'em. That road wuz covered and strewed with jest about any thing and everything you would ever expect an army to have. They wuz guns and blankets and knapsacks, they wuz waggons and cannons and loose hosses. They wuz dead Yanks and a good number of jest plain wore-out Yanks. And us whoopin' and hollerin' and generally havin' the time of our lives. "Well, sir, Daddy wuz having as big a time as anybody, but hit wuz fast gettin' dark and we wuz all slowin' down and, like sojers will do when a fight is over, we commenced to talk about this and that, who had made hit through and who wuz hurt and kilt. And Daddy spoke up. "Boys, this here is one of the finest days of my life. You two has come safe through the fight. Our Army of Tennessee has won its first battle ever. And, maybe, we are on the road to independence at last. "No sooner wuz he done with that last word than a blaze of fire like a streak of lightnin' split the night and a cannon boomed out, I guess a half mile away. Before you could blink a eye the ball from that cannon come howlin' down the road and hit Daddy square in the chest. "Pore ole man,he never knowed what hit him. He was dead afore he could have even felt anything. "Lord, son, you don't ever want to see anything like that; somebody you love and that loved you tore to bloody rags. "We wropped Daddy's body up in a blanket and picked out a spot clost to a big ole oak tree so's we could find the place again and we scraped out a grave. And all the time we wuz doin' it we wuz a'thinkin', if'n only Daddy had stayed home. If's only he hadn't been so worried and concerned about us. Here we wuz all right, and he wuz dead. "Soon after that us boys got sent off with the cavalry up to Knoxville. After that fight we spent the winter up in East Tennessee and then we fought agin' ole Sherman whilst he wuz tryin' to take Atlanta. We follered Joe Wheeler on his last big raid and done no good atall. Then we wuz sent up into Virginia and fought at Saltville. We wuz down to jest about a hunnert and fifty men by then though nine hunnert had left home with us. Us few wuz sent on down into the Carolinas to see if'f we could stop Sherman but they wuz no chanct of that. We finished up the war a fur piece from home. "Me and Jess got back home in '65 barely in time to get part of a crop in and holp Momma work the garden. All the time the same thing wuz on our minds, we needed to get back to Chickamauga and bring Daddy home. Thing is,times wuz so hard we couldn't get off to go. It wadn't till fall of 18 and 66 that we got a little bit ahead and had us a pretty good ole wagon. Then we set off. "Me and Jess had made a fine coffin out'n a black walnut tree we had cut down and sawed up into boards. We taken that with us although, havin' been sojers, we knowed about what we wuz gonna find. Law me, that shore wuz a sad trip. Least we could go direct and not have to wonder around like Daddy had done. "After we got to Chickamauga hit taken a day and a half to find whar we'd buried him. A countryside always looks different when you ain't dodgin' bullets on hit. But finally we located the place and commenced to dig. Got down to the right depth and thar waddn't nothin' thar! Jest a scrap or two of cloth and two, three buttons. "Me and Jess wuz pretty upset by that but while we wuz still standin' thar a feller come along and said that durin' the days after the battle all the Confederate dead had been dug up and moved to a little town call Crawfish Springs down in Georgia and they wuz all buried again down thar. He said almost all the graves wuz marked 'unknown.' "So that wuz that. We put the scraps and the buttons in the coffin along with some dirt from the bottom of the grave and brought that home. That's what is thar in Daddy's grave. "Ain't it a wonder now. Me and Jess fought all through the war and got never a scratch between us. And if Daddy had stayed at home he'd of lived through hit, too. But he come to Chickamauga 'cause he loved his boys and that is what killed him. Like the Gospel says, 'No man has greater love that him who lays down his life for a friend." And that, with just a little embellishment to allow me to tell it in the first person, is a true story; a story about a man who loved the South and his family and who, because of that love, laid down his life and lies today in an unmarked grave; unknown but not unloved and certainly not forgotten. Some folks, mostly Yankees, tell us we should forget that man and forget what he stood for. They say we should look toward a New South and leave the past behind. May God have mercy on their shrivelled up souls! I'm not about to forget! END