Granbury's Texas Brigade: Diehard Western Confederates

15 The Interlude

191 chapter fifteen THE INTERLUDE The willingness of Confederate troops to stay with the Southern cause late in the Civil War, despite their obviously dire situation, is the strongest argument in favor of a strong nationalism that provided the backbone of the Confederate war effort. Authors such as Mark Weitz in More Damning Than Slaughter, and others, do not have a reasonable explanation for the strong dedication displayed by the common Confederate soldiers even late in the war. The steadfastness of Granbury’s Texans after the fall of Atlanta can only partially be explained by a loyalty to their leaders and their localized perspective. Just as important to the equation in explaining their dedication was their devotion to the Confederate cause.1 As they abandoned the Gate City of the Confederacy, some Confederate soldiers made dire predictions for the future in their letters and diaries. Others remained optimistic while recovering from the campaign. The Army of Tennessee had reached a critical juncture in its history. Captain Foster recorded his apocalyptic remarks: “This army is going to do something wrong—or rather it will undertake something that will not be a success, if the future is to be judged by the past.” In contrast to Foster’s dire prediction , William Henderson of the 7th Texas wrote that “although Atlanta has been taken by the fed I am in as good a spirits as ever, I will live in hopes if I die in despair.” Henderson also took this lull to clean up. He wrote to his parents that “I have just finished washing some very dirty clothes it was Granbury’s Texas Brigade 192 very hard work I assure you. For we had been lying in the ditches ever since we came to Atlanta.”2 After the fighting of the Atlanta campaign, on September 6 the Confederates awoke to find quiet. After over one hundred days of constant fighting and skirmishing from May through September, they could not hear a single gun. Samuel Foster wrote, “Every body astonished this morning. No shooting in hearing of us, everything is as quiet as a meeting house. Whats up.”3 Charles Leuschner wrote, “We wake up at daylight and we could not hear a single gun fired. Our Gen. soon sent scout’s out to see whether yankey were gone, & they soon come back & reported them gone.”4 Sherman had in fact withdrawn to Atlanta and remained content to let Hood’s army stay at Lovejoy’s Station.5 This signaled the beginning of a lull in the fighting. As Sherman and Hood retreated to their respective corners, Hood began to push some of his units north toward Jonesboro to feel out the Federals. Hood cautiously advanced his men north in the early morning of September 8, where, along the road of advance, the Confederates encountered the offensive odor of “dead horses, decaying men, and the debris of the battlefield .”6 It became a most unwelcome and disheartening sight to the Confederates who had so recently fought over the ground they now camped upon. The Confederate army stayed at Jonesboro for ten days, during which they experienced beautiful weather. One of the Texans camped at Jonesboro with his regiment in early September 1864 was Lieutenant Thomas J. Stokes, commanding Company I, 10th Texas. Thomas Jefferson Stokes hailed from Georgia, but had moved to Texas before the war. Having voted for secession, Stokes felt it his duty to fight in the war. He had worked as a schoolteacher in Johnson County, Texas, before the war and proved a deeply religious man, and as such he helped bring about the mass revivals in the Army of Tennessee preceding the Atlanta campaign. In April, Stokes had written his sister, Missouri Stokes, and confided to her almost prophetically that many believed this “the beginning of the end.” He had had no way of knowing how events would prove him right.7 During this period Mary A. H. Gay of Decatur, Georgia, visited the troops of Granbury’s Brigade. Gay, the half-sister of Lieutenant Stokes, visited the Texans to see her darling brother “Thomie,” but also in anticipation of the winter privations she knew would come. Before the commencement of spring campaigning, several men of Granbury’s Brigade, including Stokes and Granbury, had left their heavy winter coats in the 193 the interlude possession of Miss Gay for safekeeping. With the return of fall, she decided to...