Nesbitt Memorial Library Journal, Volume 9, Number 2, May 1999 Page: 57
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Reminiscences of the Old Brigade
to each company, and the general regimental
and medical headquarters were abundantly sup-
plied with wagons and teams.
The organization being completed, I can
assert conscientiously that it was the most com-
plete and perfectly equipped brigade sent out
by the Confederacy during the war, and I do
not believe one more thoroughly equipped was
ever sent out by any nation, and this Gen. Sibley
deserves credit for.
True, our arms consisted mostly of double
barrelshot guns-and they were not considered
as army guns, but the truth is: just place plenty
of courage behind a double barrel shot gun and
it will whip any gun on earth. I know that when
we had shot guns and opened fire on the enemy
their lines melted away, but after we got im-
proved arms, when we opened fire their lines
did not melt so fast. Again, when we had shot
guns we alway went to see the "Yanks," and
the shots told, after we got the improved arms
we took them at long range and they were just
as good shots at long range as we were.
But after the organization was complete,
and after everything was ready to start, we were
kept lying around San Antonio for six weeks
before we took up the line of march, several
times orders were issued for us to take up the
line of march and we prepared to do so, but the
orders were as often countermanded ...
November 3, 1887
Chapter V
On the March
"Order to march." These were the words
that carried joy and gladness to the hearts of
the members of the Sibley Brigade, uttered
about the middle of November, 1861. Those
men had left their homes of comfort and ease,
their wives and little ones; their fathers, moth-
ers, sisters and sweethearts, everything on this
earth dear to the most of men, in June and Julyat the call of their country; had enlisted for the
war fully bent on doing all in their power to
carry the Southern cross to victory, and to make
the Confederate States a free sovereign and in-
dependent nation. Most of them were boys rang-
ing in age from eighteen to twenty-three years,
and fully expected to whip out the whole United
States in time to be at home for the "Christmas
dinner.'
But contrary to their expectation they had
been compelled to lie around San Antonio for
several weary, tedious months, waiting for or-
ders to march, and now at last those orders had
come and overflowed their souls with joy.
It is true, that the boys while waiting in
camp seemed to be contented, but the Confed-
erate soldier had a way of taking things as they
come and making the best of everything, and
whether his bed was mother earth with the stars
of heaven for a covering, or whether he slept
in luxury and ease on feather beds and downy
pillows in magnificent palaces; whether he was
in a palace or a hovel; whether he was eating
magnificent dinners of the very fat of the land,
or dining on parched corn and cold water;
whether he was arrayed in a costume well be-
fitting a Broadway dude, or clothed in rags and
tatters scarcely sufficient to hide his skin;
whether warmly sheltered from the bleak winds
of winter, or exposed to its most chilling blast;
whether lying in some shady nook from the
summer's heat, or marching bare-headed and
bare-footed beneath the blazing rays of a July
sun, he always seemed happy, contented and
firmly bent on performing the job, he had on
hand, viz: to carry aloft the flag of the South
amid the den of battle, the roar of cannons and
the crash of musketry.
So that while the "boys" had been kept a
long time around San Antonio, yet they had
taken the matter coolly, and made the most of
it by enjoying themselves the best they could
visiting San Antonio and the neighbors around,
and I have heard it stated that some of them57
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Nesbitt Memorial Library. Nesbitt Memorial Library Journal, Volume 9, Number 2, May 1999, periodical, May 1999; Columbus, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth151406/m1/9/?q=nesbitt%20memorial%20library%20journal: accessed April 26, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Nesbitt Memorial Library.