They were ready to ring down the curtain,
put out the footlights and go home. They loved the Union anyhow, and
were always opposed to this war. But breathe softly the name of Bragg.
It had more terror than the advancing hosts of Halleck's army. The shot
and shell would come tearing through our ranks. Every now and then a
soldier was killed or wounded, and we thought what "magnificent" folly.
Death was welcome. Halleck's whole army of blue coats had no terror now.
When we were drawn up in line of battle, a detail of one-tenth of the
army was placed in our rear to shoot us down if we ran. No pack of
hounds under the master's lash, or body of penitentiary convicts were
ever under greater surveillance. We were tenfold worse than slaves;
our morale was a thing of the past; the glory of war and the pride of
manhood had been sacrificed upon Bragg's tyrannical holocaust. But
enough of this.

ROWLAND SHOT TO DEATH

One morning I went over to the 23rd Tennessee Regiment on a visit to
Captain Gray Armstrong and Colonel Jim Niel, both of whom were glad to
see me, as we were old ante-bellum friends. While at Colonel Niel's
marquee I saw a detail of soldiers bring out a man by the name of Rowland,
whom they were going to shoot to death with musketry, by order of a
court-martial, for desertion. I learned that he had served out the term
for which he had originally volunteered, had quit our army and joined
that of the Yankees, and was captured with Prentiss' Yankee brigade
at Shiloh. He was being hauled to the place of execution in a wagon,
sitting on an old gun box, which was to be his coffin. When they got to
the grave, which had been dug the day before, the water had risen in it,
and a soldier was baling it out. Rowland spoke up and said, "Please hand
me a drink of that water, as I want to drink out of my own grave so the
boys will talk about it when I am dead, and remember Rowland." They
handed him the water and he drank all there was in the bucket, and
handing it back asked them to please hand him a little more, as he had
heard that water was very scarce in hell, and it would be the last he
would ever drink. He was then carried to the death post, and there he
began to cut up jack generally. He began to curse Bragg, Jeff. Davis,
and the Southern Confederacy, and all the rebels at a terrible rate.
He was simply arrogant and very insulting. I felt that he deserved
to die. He said he would show the rebels how a Uni