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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
Bob Bowman's East Texas March
7, 2010 Column
A weekly column syndicated in 109 East Texas newspapers |
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