Ed. Note: The following is an excerpt from the personal diary of John Haines Newsom. He kept a journal for many years from his youth into advanced years. This portion covers his service during the Civil War.
The Rebellion
In the year 1861, the great rebellion began. I was opposed to the action of the southern states in seceding from the Union and setting up a government formed on secession. The very idea of forming a government out of different states that had just seceded from a government formed by a union of states seemed to me ridiculous in the extreme.
But the politicians succeeded in firing up the minds of the common class of people to such a height that they were enabled to dupe them into obeying the party leaders, until they could lead them with oily tongues, until they had so completely overreached them that they had them bound by such rules and regulations as enable the leaders to now become drivers, and they drove them as the ox is driven to the slaughter.
I stayed at home and attended to my business until the summer of 1862. When the conscript law was being enforced, I mounted myself and joined Lane's First Texas Rangers. I only went because I saw before long I would be arrested and taken off under guard and put into some infantry command. So I thought it best to go while I could ride! While I was in the drill camp I endeavored to post myself on Hardin's tactics and I soon became an efficient drill master, which made me prominent in my regiment. I was a total stranger as I had never met a single man in my regiment before I joined the Confederate Army.
I could have obtained an official position but my heart was not in it and I was determined to serve as little as I could. But while I was a soldier, I never shirked any duty. If I was placed on picket, I would guard the approach of the opposing army with all the vigilance possible for me to command. The lives of men depended on my integrity and I would have died on the spot rather than let other men suffer on account of my unfaithfulness.
On one occasion while I was on picket duty, a Yankee attempted to slip up on me and surprise then capture or shoot me. I saw him and divined his intentions. I acted in a way as to lead him to believe that I did not know he was in existence and thus to some extent put him off his guard to some degree when I was in reality watching him very closely.
Just as he was in the act of bringing his carbine into position to spring around the fence to hail me, I jumped around on him with the muzzle of my gun to his breast. He dropped his carbine and surrendered in the twinkle of an eye. I marched him into headquarters as soon as the relief picket came out.
My intention was to leave the army just as soon as I could catch a lull in the fighting however the first six months was one continual skirmish. Finally, we were everlastingly routed and more the two-thirds of our division, to wit, General Hindman's command, broke camps and went home, leaving the Union is possession of Missouri and Arkansas.
Just as I was planning to cross the lines, I was taken down with the measles and the whole command marched off to Texas and left me sick. At the time I was sick, another one of my company by the name of Gus Hamilton was sick and they sent him to the soldiers' hospital at Ft. Smith along with some others.
But I had some money to pay my way and I got out in the country to a private house..
I stayed in the Confederate Army for 15 months more and finally, on the 25th day of July in 1864, I left the Army and made my way to New Orleans. From there, I got deck fare on the James White to St. Louis where I landed on the 9th of August, 1864. On the 1oth I started out to hunt work. I contracted to work with John C. Davidson of the Madison County American to work one month for $18 in U.S. currency which was worth about $7 in gold.
I began work on the 11th but was taken ill with the flu and was very sick for 11 days before I was able to work again.
During all this time, Davidson's family was very kind to me. They nursed me faithfully and kindly and, by the grace of God, I have lived to repay their kindness. But at the time I had no money, having paid the last cent I had for the boat fare.
Soon after I began work for the second time, I was promoted to foreman of the work on the farm and my wages were raised to $40 a month. I stayed there and managed John Davidson's business until Sept. 13th, 1865, when I started back to Texas by shipping on the Henry Ames to New Orleans.
From New Orleans I steamed up the Red River to Shreveport. From there I traveled with some wagons that were heading west. When I got within nine miles of Gilmer, Texas, I met up with some of my old neighbors from Wood County. They gave me the first intelligence I had had from home since I left on June 24th, 1864. The news was very sad intelligence for me indeed.
During my absence my father and my sister had died. My mother had never been very well since the death of my sister about four months before. She was old and feeble and the shock of losing her last friend was more than she could bear.
(Newsom concludes by relating how he obtained transport from Gilmer to his home 35 miles away. His mother died soon after he arrived and he buried her beside his father and sister in Quitman. He found that his father's business was in bad shape and over the following period of his life, he set about obtaining work and rebuilding the business.)
| < Prev | Next > |
|---|
