Co. Aytch

I recently re-read this memoir by Sam Watkins many years after initially reading it. You can download and read this book for free here, here, here, and here. You can see a short biography of Watkins from the Nation Park Service here. Something you won’t learn from reading the memoirs is Watkins’s father owned over 100 enslaved people. The version I read is from Collier Books, in paperback, Fifth printing, dated 1976, with an introduction by Roy Basler.

He begins with an allegory rife with lost cause nonsense, backing up the late Ed Bearss’s contention that Watkins was “a BS artist.” He writes, “About twenty years ago, I think it was — I won’t be certain, though — a man whose name, if I remember correctly, was Wm. L. Yancy — I write only from memory, and this was a long time ago — took a strange and peculiar notion that the sun rose in the east and set in the west, and that the compass pointed north and south. Now, everybody knew at the time that it was but the idiosyncrasy of an unbalanced mind, and that the United States of America had no north, no south, no east, no west. Well, he began to preach the strange doctrine of there being such a thing. He began to have followers. As you know, it matters not how absurd, ridiculous and preposterous doctrines may be preached there will be some followers. Well, one man by the name of (I think it was) Rhett, said it out loud. He was told to ‘s-h-e-e.’ Then another fellow by the name (I remember this one because it sounded like a graveyard) Toombs said so, and he was told to ‘sh-sh-ee-ee.’ Then after a while whole heaps of people began to say that they thought that there was a north and a south; and after a while hundreds and thousands and millions said that there was a south. But they were the persons who lived in the direction that the water courses run. Now, the people who lived where the water courses started from came down to see about it, and they said, ‘Gents, you are very much mistaken. We came over in the Mayflower, and we used to burn witches for saying that the sun rose in the east and set in the west, because the sun neither rises nor sets, the earth simply turns on its axis, and we know, because we are Pure(i) tans.’ The spokesman of the party was named (I think I remember his name because it always gave me the blues when I heard it) Horrors Greeley; and another person by the name of Charles Sumner, said there ain’t any north or south, east or west, and you shan’t say so, either. Now, the other people who lived in the direction that the water courses run, just raised their bristles and continued saying that there is a north and there is a south. When those at the head of the water courses come out furiously mad, to coerce those in the direction that water courses run, and to make them take it back. Well, they went to gouging and biting, to pulling and scratching at a furious rate. One side elected a captain by the name of Jeff Davis, and known as one-eyed Jeff, and a first lieutenant by the name of Aleck Stephens, commonly styled Smart Aleck: The other side selected as captain a son of Nancy Hanks, of Bowling Green, and a son of old Bob Lincoln, the rail-splitter, and whose name was Abe. Well, after he was elected captain, they elected as first lieutenant an individual of doubtful blood by the name of Hannibal Hamlin, being a descendant of the generation of Ham, the bad son of old Noah, who meant to curse him blue, but overdid the thing, and cursed him black. Well, as I said before, they went to fighting, but old Abe’s side got the best of the argument. But in getting the best of the argument they called in all the people and wise men of other nations of the earth, and they, too, said that America had no cardinal points, and that the sun did not rise in the east and set in the west, and that the compass did not point either north or south. Well, then, Captain Jeff Davis’ side gave it up and quit, and they, too, went to saying that there is no north, no south, no east, no west. Well, ‘us boys’ all took a small part in the fracas, and Shep, the prophet, remarked that the day would come when those who once believed that the American continent had cardinal points would be ashamed to own it. That day has arrived. America has no north, no south, no east, no west; the sun rises over the hills and sets over the mountains, the compass just points up and down, and we can laugh now at the absurd notion of there being a north and a south.” [pp. 17-19] Notice there is nothing about the argument over slavery there, he casts the confederacy as victims of coercion, the confederates were overwhelmed by massive numbers, and also notice the racist reference to Hannibal Hamlin.

He also writes, “The Federal army was advancing all along the line. They expected to march right into the heart of the South, set the negroes free, take our property, and whip the rebels back into the Union. But they soon found that secession was a bigger mouthful than they could swallow at one gobble. They found the people of the South in earnest.” This is probably the most honest, though somewhat wrong, claim he makes about the two sides in the war. We see the false claim that initially the US wanted to free the slaves. This didn’t happen until the second half of the war. He does say the US sought to preserve the Union, which is true. At least he brings slavery into the narrative here, though he doesn’t say protecting slavery motivated the confederates as it did.

He continues, “Secession may have been wrong in the abstract, and has been tried and settled by the arbitrament of the sword and bayonet, but I am as firm in my convictions today of the right of secession as I was in 1861. The South is our country, the North is the country of those who live there. We are an agricultural people; they are a manufacturing people. They are the descendants of the good old Puritan Plymouth Rock stock, and we of the South from the proud and aristocratic stock of Cavaliers. We believe in the doctrine of State rights, they in the doctrine of centralization.” [pp. 21-22] That’s all oversimplified lost cause nonsense as well. The slavers loved centralization as long as it served slavery. They hated state rights when free states were trying to keep their African American citizens from being kidnapped and sent south into slavery. He further claims, “We only fought for our State rights, they for Union and power. The South fell battling under the banner of State rights, but yet grand and glorious even in death.” That’s all lost cause lies. The confederacy fought to preserve slavery, the United States fought to preserve the Union, and in the second half of the war added destruction of slavery as a war aim because it would best preserve the Union and prevent another war from breaking out. There was nothing grand and glorious about treason to preserve slavery.

He also claims, while his unit, the Firsts Tennessee, was in West Virginia, “One evening, General Robert E. Lee came to our camp. He was a fine-looking gentleman, and wore a moustache. He was dressed in blue cottonade and looked like some good boy’s grandpa. I felt like going up to him and saying good evening, Uncle Bob! I am not certain at this late day that I did not do I remember going up mighty close and sitting there and listening to his conversation with the officers of our regiment. He had a calm and collected air about him, his voice was kind and tender, and his eye was as gentle as a dove’s. His whole make-up of form and person, looks and manner had a kind of gentle and soothing magnetism about it that drew every one to him and made them love, respect, and honor him. I fell in love with the old gentleman and felt like going home with him. I know I have never seen a finer looking man, nor one with more kind and gentle features and manners. His horse was standing nipping the grass, and when I saw that he was getting ready to start I ran and caught his horse and led him up to him. He took the reins of the bridle in his hand and said, ‘thank you, my son,’ rode off, and my heart went with him. There was none of his staff with him; he had on no sword or pistol, or anything to show his rank. The only thing that I remember he had was an opera-glass hung over his shoulder by a strap.” [p. 27] That whole episode is doubtful. It’s doubtful he knew who R. E. Lee was at the time, and it’s doubtful he went up to Lee’s horse if indeed Lee visited anywhere near the First Tennessee.

The book is filled with vignettes, many of which probably didn’t happen. However, in his descriptions of life in camp he gives us what seems to be the truth. We can get a glimpse of what it was like to be a confederate soldier in camp thanks to this book, though only a glimpse. The centrality of slavery to the confederacy isn’t present in this book. There are isolated references to enslaved people, but only as an afterthought. While there had to be thousands of enslaved people with the army, we read of only a few enslaved people who could be counted on one hand. There is one truth contained here, though–you won’t see any references to the mythical black confederate soldier.

It’s easy to see why Ken Burns gave such visibility to Sam Watkins in his “The Civil War” miniseries. The book is written in a compelling narrative and the stories Watkins tells are entertaining, if not always true. However, it’s obvious that though he affects a persona of a common man, Watkins was one of the South’s elites, educated and coming from a wealthy family.

If you approach this book from the standpoint of the greater truth of what it was like to be a confederate soldier and disregard its lost cause aspects and many of the vignettes that seem too good to be true, you can find this book to be useful and an entertaining read. With those caveats I can recommend it for students of the war.