{"id":5029,"date":"2015-11-12T08:29:20","date_gmt":"2015-11-12T13:29:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=5029"},"modified":"2015-12-16T08:20:45","modified_gmt":"2015-12-16T13:20:45","slug":"id-mutch-rather-see-them","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=5029","title":{"rendered":"I’d “Mutch Rather See Them”"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Civil

Stones River National Battlefield (photo: wikipedia)<\/p><\/div>\n

I spent Veterans\u2019 Day yesterday deciphering four letters my great-great uncles wrote in 1863 and 1864 when serving in the U.S. Civil War. Men from my family served on both sides of that war, and the Tennessee ancestors on my grandfather\u2019s side epitomize that truism about the border states, \u201cit was brother against brother.\u201d Those living in Wilson County, east of Nashville, fought for the South, while those who\u2019d moved further west, to Carroll County, were Union men.<\/p>\n

The war did not treat kindly the land of Wilson County and the Hurricane Creek area where my family lived. Just ten miles down the road in early 1863 raged the Battle of Stones River (also called the Battle of Murfreesboro). On the Union side, Gen. William Rosecrans led some 43,000 men of the Army of the Cumberland, while Confederate Gen. Braxton Bragg brought 38,000 men from the Army of Tennessee. Although \u201ctactically indecisive,\u201d it was one of the war\u2019s bloodiest battles, with an estimated 23,500 men killed or injured.<\/p>\n

More than 80,000 men moving through an agricultural area does not leave much behind for the settlers. As a returning soldier wrote, \u201cWhen I reached my grandfather\u2019s farm, I saw something of what the home folks were enduring while we were away in the army: barns all gone, fine trees cut down in the front lot, stock all gone, everything in disarray.\u201d Food and currency were scarce, and supplies were gone. \u201cFor two years there was no coffee, no sugar, no shoes.\u201d The cotton crop of 1866 was meager, and an epidemic of cholera raged that summer, hitting Wilson County hard, only to be followed by smallpox in the fall. Thus the painted slogan \u201cGTT\u201d began appearing on the doors of people\u2019s abandoned homes and farms\u2014Gone To Texas.<\/p>\n

Some family on my grandmother Smith\u2019s side already lived in Texas and their sons were recruited into the Confederate forces. It is their letters I was working on, with the beautifully florid handwriting and many misspellings adding to their charm. These boys\u2014John Ricerd (J.R.), about age 20, and George, 23\u2014were two of eight sons of William and Elizabeth Smith, and they are intimately concerned about the fate of their younger brothers:<\/p>\n