Jim Martin
43rd Alabama Info
Sun Apr 22 11:08:55 2001



I got this information at the following website:
http://expert.cc.purdue.edu/~chrism/family/Salmag.txt

FATHER'S CIVIL WAR RECORD

The Civil War: My father entered the Civil War as a volunteer in 1862 and got back home in June 1865. 1 very much regret that while he was living I did not get a complete history of his war record. It seems strange that of the six boys, none of us thought to record all he told us about the war. He would often talk about it, and when any man who had been in the war would spend the night in our home the general topic of conversation was the war, and we never tired of listening. We would never go to bed so long as they talked war. Most men his age were Confederate veterans, the men living near us, so when they, or even strangers, of the Confederate Army came we heard lots of war history.

The following was given by W. B. (Bart) Rhea long after the war. He remembered distinctly that on a Sunday morning, the first day of June 1862, he and father, with several others, left home for Tuscaloosa. Others with them were, Larkin Johnston, father's older brother; Reuben Naramore, husband of Polly Ann (Johnston) Naramore, father's sister; Con and Jack Davis, brothers; Ab Knight; John Richardson; Wm. A. Thompson, my mother's brother; John Gilbert, and Dick Winchester. Others who were with them after they were assembled at Tuscaloosa were, Bill and Jack Gilbert, brothers; Henry Jackson, and Joe Humber. They were all "mustered" (not-inducted) into the Confederate Army and assigned to Company K., 43rd Alabama Regiment Volunteers. James Shepherd was Captain of the Company, and a Mr. Redwood was First Lieutenant.

After two or three weeks at Tuscaloosa they went by wagon train to a railroad destination and by train from there to Mobile. From Mobile they went to Montgomery, part way by boat to some point named Blakely in Florida, and then on to Montgomery by train. Reaching Montgomery they went by rail to the war theatre.

Some of the battles they were in were: Tullahoma, Chickamauga, Perryville, Chancellorsville, Asheville, and Petersburg, not necessarily in order named. They were in camp at Cumberland Gap one winter. It must have been the winter of 1862-63. Father said that was the coldest place he had ever experienced, that the wind whistled through the gap in the mountain (they were on the south side) just like it was coming off the ice and snow, day and night all winter.

Father talked much about the French Broad river and the Holston river. Once they climbed a mountain that took them nearly all day. By the time they got to the top it was after midday. They were so tired and sore when they started down the other side of the mountain they could hardly keep their knees from buckling under them.

The siege and battle of Petersburg lasted some nine months. Father was in the trenches part time when the Union Army was driving or digging that tunnel 511 feet long from a ravine just out of sight of the Confederate trenches, to right under the Confederate garrison which was their strongest defense. Then a tunnel 150 feet long was dug under the Confederate trenches at right angles to the long tunnel from the ravine 500 feet away.