Newton County GaArchives News.....MR. MOSS'S DIARY AS KEPT DURING SIXTIES May 3 1917 ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/ga/gafiles.htm ************************************************ File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by: Phyllis Thompson mandpthompson@bellsouth.net February 7, 2004, 11:01 pm The Covington News "This Is As I Saw It. It May Be Different As Others Saw It" He Says of 3d Regiment, Company H. BEGINNING WITH THE YEAR 1861 December, 1863 16....We went down to Powder Springs Gap and the 16th Ga., or a part of us, volunteered to go about 5 miles, where a party of Yanks had pressed a mill and were having wheat ground. Part of our party dismounted and ____ in the rear of them and some of Co A and B was to charge them. While we was waiting for the dismounted ones to get in the rear, the Yanks had got wind of it and had started out to the rear and our dismounted men fired into them. They ran out our way and we captured them, horses and all. The road was white with flour. We only had 15 men but they and us met and they surrendered without firing a gun of the 15 men. We took 56 prisoners of men and horses. 2 of them was killed by the dismounted men. We had nobody hurt, we went back to Powder Springs Gap with the balance of the 16th Ga. 17....We lay in camps all day. Powerful cold. I got one of the captured horses, the first one I had of my own since Blountville fight, where I lost mine. I rode on Lieut. HODGE'S horse. We made Col. GILTNER a present of a good horse, the choice of the lot that was captured. 18....We moved on top of mountain after dark. Co. B on picket. Some of the boys went down the mountains and captured some sutler wagons and got some clothing and a lot of gloves and sold them. I bought two pair of gloves, one at 5 and the other at 10 dollars per pair. 19....Sent out a foraging party and the Yanks ran them back to camp, then we made them toddle back several miles. 20....I was sick with a cold and could hardly breathe and had been so 4 or 5 days and nights. JOHN BOHANNON'S horse kicked him in the forehead and came very near killing him. The shoe made a hole in his head. 21....Clear and powerful cold. Had to kill hogs to get something to eat. 22....The foraging party had a skirmish with the Yanks and drove them back to Blain's cross roads. We had orders to go to Russellville got within one mile of Morrisburg and staid the balance of the night, two hours. 23....Crossed the river below Prophitt's at Cobb's ford on the Holston river and camped at the old paper mill in cedar thicket. Had a negro fiddler after dark. 24....Went after forage down the river. 25....We moved to Cobb's and Brown's mill and got plenty of corn on the river. 26....We got orders to move to Noah's ford. 10 miles below on the river, rained powerful hard. 27....We passed Morristown. Genl. HARRIS was fighting the Yanks below us on the river. Got to the ford a while before night and camped. 28....We went after forage up the creek towards Panther Springs. 29....Artillery commenced below us at 10 o'clock down the river. 30....Co. B on picket. The Yanks came in sight on the other side of the river. 31....A train of wagons passed on the other side of the river, heavily guarded, after forage. The boys got behind stumps and gave them a few rounds. We moved in the evneing out of the Horse Shoe Bend, 2 miles nearer the Panther Springs. Rain sleeted and snowed all night, ground white. We had no axes to cut firewood. We drew plenty of poor beef and not fit to eat and we had plenty of bread stuff and stuff it was. It was between a iron gray and a Pie Ball Brown color. We had plenty of blankets. Some had good Horses that we captured some time ago, but the coldest weather. We all went to bed like horses with our shoes on and didn't care whether we ever got up or not. January, 1864 1.....Dreadful cold. Had a little picket shooting. 2.....Cold and cloudy. I bought a sash from THOMPSON that he stole at Genl. RANSOM'S headquarters. I paid him 10 dollars for it. 3.....All the creek and river frozen over where the water was eddy. 4.....A. C. WILLIAMS let me have his sharp knife to keep for him. 5.....Co. B on picket in Horse Shoe Bend. There was some of them on picket in mill house and some in an old Ferry landing. The Yanks ran in and captured PHILLIPS and SKINNER, SMITH,SHEPHERD, STANSIL, HENDERSON. I had just left them and started back to camp. They came near cutting me off, me and CHARLEY PARKER, of Co. C. Co. C came in haste to the relief of Co. B and we ran them back across the river. COOK SHADDOCK, of Co B., ran down under the mill house and his horse broke loose from the Yanks and came back to camp in a run. To Be Continued. This file has been created by a form at http://www.poppet.org/gafiles/ File size: 4.9 Kb