rambling in a briar-patch. About fifty members of the
Rock City Guards were killed and nearly one hundred wounded. They were
led by Captains W. D. Kelley, Wheless, and Steele. Lieutenant Thomas
H. Maney was badly wounded. I saw dead on the battlefield a Federal
General by the name of Jackson. It was his brigade that fought us so
obstinately at this place, and I did hear that they were made up in
Kentucky. Colonel Field, then commanding our brigade, and on his fine
gray mare, rode up almost face to face with General Jackson, before
he was killed, and Colonel Field was shooting all the time with his
seven-shooting rifle. I cannot tell the one-half, or even remember at
this late date, the scenes of blood and suffering that I witnessed on
the battlefield of Perryville. But its history, like all the balance,
has gone into the history of the war, and it has been twenty years ago,
and I write entirely from memory. I remember Lieutenant Joe P. Lee and
Captain W. C. Flournoy standing right at the muzzle of the Napoleon guns,
and the next moment seemed to be enveloped in smoke and fire from the
discharge of the cannon. When the regiment recoiled under the heavy
firing and at the first charge, Billy Webster and I stopped behind a
large oak tree and continued to fire at the Yankees until the regiment
was again charging upon the four Napoleon guns, heavily supported by
infantry. We were not more than twenty paces from them; and here I was
shot through the hat and cartridge-box. I remember this, because at
that time Billy and I were in advance of our line, and whenever we saw
a Yankee rise to shoot, we shot him; and I desire to mention here that
a braver or more noble boy was never created on earth than was Billy
Webster. Everybody liked him. He was the flower and chivalry of our
regiment. His record as a brave and noble boy will ever live in the
hearts of his old comrades that served with him in Company H. He is up
yonder now, and we shall meet again. In these memoirs I only tell what I
saw myself, and in this way the world will know the truth. Now, citizen,
let me tell you what you never heard before, and this is this--there were
many men with the rank and pay of general, who were not generals; there
were many men with the rank and pay of privates who would have honored
and adorned the name of general. Now, I will state further that a
private soldier was a private.

It mattered not how ignorant a corporal might b