In
early 1861, W.W. Heartsill of Marshall,
Texas, marched off to war with W.P. Lane’s Rangers of the Confederate Army.
During the four years, one month and one day that he spent at war, Heartsill managed
to keep a diary of each day.
Throughout his service, he carried with him
a small memorandum book with this notation on the flyleaf: “If I am killed, or
if by any mishap this book is lost, please send it to my father, A. Heartsill,
Louisville, East Tennessee.”
When Heartsill filled up one of the books,
he sent it home to Marshall for safekeeping.
“Scores of times, I was as wet as water could make me, as these books bear evidence.
Sometimes my book would come all to pieces after a soaking, and as it was being
written with a pencil, I had to retrace with a pen when the opportunity was offered.”
Heartsill’s journals are mirrors of camp life and the trials and pleasures
he endured as a private in the Confederate ranks.
When he came home, he
began printing the pages of his diaries, completing the work in 1876.
Heartsill’s
recollections show war in its horror and occasional moments when the soldiers
in Lane’s Rangers laughed at the antics of their fellow soldiers.
In
November of 1861, Heartsill wrote: “Today, we attended the funeral of a soldier,
a solemn, sad duty.”
On Sunday, July 11, Heartsill wrote that Confederate
and Union troops clashed near the Arkansas River with only 4,000 Confederate soldiers
facing “70,000 of the Yanks.” During the battle, the Confederates’ hospital was
set afire, “killing two of our surgeons and a wounded man who was being operated
upon by the surgeons.”
“Such agony, such, such horror and so many deaths;
how many of our brave comrades perished in this frightful tragedy, heaven alone
will reveal.”
During the battle, Heartsill wrote than Lane’s Rangers “are
not recognized as Confederate soldiers, but will be teated as guerrillas from
the fact that we are an independent company.”
On July 12th, Heartsill
wrote that,”oh, how hungry we are.” He said “we all are supplied with a liberal
breakfast composed entirely of river water.” At noon, he said, “we receive the
same for dinner that we got for breakfast” and in the evening, the Rangers finally
got “a good supply of fat bacon and hard tack, which is the only food that we
have had for 84 hours.”
The
Rangers were captured by the Union troops and loaded aboard a ship with Arkansas
soldiers. “Every man is looking for news about an exchange (for Yankee soldiers
held by the South).”
Heartsill made it through the war and he and his fellow
soldiers were mustered out of service on May 20, 1865, in Harrison County, Texas.
Bob
Bowman's East Texas
March 7, 2010 Column
A weekly column syndicated in 109 East Texas newspapers
Copyright
Bob Bowman |
