Floyd County GaArchives Obituaries.....Witcher, O. R. June 27, 1863
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Laurel Baty laurelbaty@comcast.net January 17, 2007, 12:33 pm

The Rome Courier, August 20, 1863, page 4.
The Rome Courier, August 20, 1863, page 4.

In Memoriam.

“Oh! What a sadness on the heart is flung,
When peals the requiem of the loved and young.”

The subject of this sketch, O. R. Witcher, son of T. Witcher, Esq., of Floyd 
county, Georgia, entered the provisional army of the Confederate States, as a 
member of the 1st Regiment Georgia Cavalry, in March 1862, then aged seventeen 
years.  From that time until his death, I knew him.  He was kind and gentle in 
his intercourse with his fellow soldiers, generous in the extreme, sober and 
moral.
From the time of his enlistment until the action in which he received his 
death-wound, he had never been absent from the regiment, traveling over all 
the many weary miles of mountain road.  Sharing all the hardships (many of 
them unprecedented in the annals of war) and participating in all the 
brilliant engagements of his gallant regiment.  Always securing the praise of 
his company and regimental officers.
During all that time he had never been home. He was with us at Murfreesboro 
and London, Big Hill, Munfordsville, Boston, Clay Village and Murfreesboro 
again, Stanford, Danville, Somerset and last at Monticello.  Foremost in the 
action, he passed through all these brilliant engagements as if he bore a 
charmed existence, and heard every victorious shout of his comrades.  All who 
have seen his bright face smiling in the hottest of the contest, and heard his 
almost feminine voice, urging his comrades forward, will remember them forever.
On the 9th of June, 1863, near Monticello, Ky., an engagement took place 
between the forces under Gen. Pegram and the enemy.  Young Witcher’s regiment 
(1st Ga. Cavalry) was called into action while he was off on picket, and thus 
he became separated from it, but instead of shirking danger, as too many are 
apt to do, he fell promptly with Rucker’s Legion, and fought with his usual 
bravery for hours, finally falling in with his own regiment, he rushed to the 
front, shouting “come on boys! Come on! We will whip them yet.”  The boyish 
voice scarce uttered the heroic words, ere the swift-winged messenger had done 
its mission.  During his confinement from the wound, (which for some time did 
well) he gave himself up to serious reflection—said he thought of the many 
dangers he had passed up to the time of his wound and his safe delivery there 
from—felt that he had been too ungrateful—prayed and asked the prayers of the 
ministers, who, as he said, manifested such interest in his case.
The battle was hard but short.  On the second day of the conflict, God was 
merciful to the soldier, a flood of holy light burst upon his heretofore 
darkened vision—he was happy, and praised his Maker for his timely deliverance.
He was much interested for his father, relatives and fellow soldiers, desired 
to live to get home, to tell his hopes of future salvation, to join the church 
in which his mother had lived and died.  He said receiving the wound was the 
most fortunate event of his life, that since then he was changed, that he was 
prepared to live an exemplary life before his officers and fellow soldiers.
In a few days he was convinced that he must die—spoke of death, and the future 
with a stoical calmness, regretting nothing save that he had not come unto 
a “knowledge of the truth,” sooner, and that he could not see his friends ere 
his soul should quit its earthly tenement.
He died with Christian hopes, on the 27th of June.  He was carried to his home 
to die, but did not reach it.  In the village whose streets are laved at once 
by the bright waters of the Etowah and Oostanaula, he breathed his last—in his 
native village, the gem of the mountains, and in his bright youthful vision of 
the future, the city of his manhood, his gentle spirit went up, a beautiful 
sacrifice for liberty.  He fell where sorried ranks go down—where rushing 
squadrons are crushed by the violence of the onset, where trumpets clang and 
sabers gleam.  He fell with his “back to the field and his face to the foe.”
He will never again heed the words “fall in,” a comrade must fill up his 
space, for he is “absent with leave” forever.  The bugle’s shrill notes at 
midnight, sounding “to horse” will never more startle him from his quiet 
slumbers.  His last long march is made—his last fierce battle is fought, for 
he will have a new “captain” who is “peace maker.”  We hope he has 
the “countersign,” which will pass the “pickets” on the unseen shore.
“The storm that wrecks the winter sky,
No more disturbs his sweet repose,
Then summer evening’s latest sigh.
That shuts the rose.”





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