Schley-Randolph County GaArchives News.....Conscription in the Mountains-C.L. Peacock June  1913
************************************************
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:
Harris Hill http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00011.html#0002514 November 26, 2003, 4:49 pm

Confederate Veteran  Vol. XXIII  No. 4, April 1915

Conscription in the Mountains
by C.L. Peacock, Ellaville, Ga.

After the battle of Murfreesboro, in the later part of 1862, the 2d Battalion 
of Georgia Sharpshooters was stationed in Chattanooga as provost guard of that 
post.  In the early part of 1863 Major Cox, commanding the battalion, was 
informed that a number of deserters and other able-bodied men were in hiding in 
Buck's Pocket, on Cumberland Mountain, some fifty miles from Chattanooga.  His 
informant, a private citizen, offered to act as guide in case he cared to 
attack them.  Major Cox accepted the offer and had fifty men detailed from the 
battalion and started in pursuit, arriving at the Tennessee River fifteen miles 
below Chattanooga about 9 a.m.  We were carried across the river on a flatboat 
and at once began the march through sleet and snow to the foot of the mountain, 
arriving there about sundown.  There was a church and also a residence at that 
point, and there had been a quilting that day.  A number of these men from the 
Pocket were there, but before we could surround the house, most of them 
escaped, and we succeeded in capturing only two.

While detained there, the rain poured in torrents for half an hour, and in less 
than ten minutes after the rain ceased, the wind was blowing a gale from the 
north, and the water from the mountain side, which only a few moments before 
was running like a creek, was frozen hard.  The moon shone almost as bright as 
day, and the mountain seemed to be a solid ball of ice.  We began the march up 
the mountain with the two prisoners, but we had not proceeded far when one of 
them made his escape.  We arrived at the Pocket about 4 a.m. and found the 
occupants had fled; but there was evidence that at least one hundred and fifty 
men had been hiding there, as they had left their bedding and cooking utensils.

This Pocket is the work of nature and is a huge opening in the mountain side, 
with ledge after ledge of rock, forming a perfect shelter from rain and cold.  
It was much larger at the bottom than the opening and spacious enough to 
accomodate two or three hundred men.

There were a few squatters on the mountain living three or four miles apart.  
We visited a number of these huts, but found only three men subject to military 
duty, whom we arrested and carried to the guardhouse in Chattanooga.  One of 
the men begged pitiously to be given his liberty, claiming that he was for 
neither side, but his pleas were unavailing.  He was confined in the 
guardhouse, and his wife, with an infant in her arms, walked the long distance 
to see and comfort him.  He lived only a short time, dying from grief, in the 
opinion of the attending physician.

We started on the return march about 9 a.m., intending to reach the foot of the 
mountain by nightfall; but realizing that night would overtake us before we 
reached the point of descent, Major Cox decided to camp on the mountain, so he 
sent a detail down in the valley for provisions.  Before they returned Major 
Cox was informed that the bushwakers had mustered together some two hundred and 
fifty men and planned the massacre of the command.  We made a hasty retreat 
down the mountain and struck camp too tired and sleepy to think about something 
to eat.  Early the next morning we started on the return march without 
breakfast, reaching the ferry about noon.

While waiting for a flatboat to return for the second squad, Sim Roper, my 
messmate accidentally shot himself, dying a day or so later.  He entered the 
Confederate service in May 1861, and was a member of the 5th Georgia Regiment, 
Cuthbert Rifles.  I should like to hear from any surviving comrade of that 
memorable march.  I was commissary sergeant of the 2d Battalion of Georgia 
Sharpshooters. 







Additional Comments:
Caleb Lafayette Peacock enlisted in Co. G, 5th Ga. Inf. at Cumberland Gap, Tn., 
in March 1862.  He was almost immediately transferred to the 2d Battalion 
Georgia Sharpshooters as a number of the Co. G men were.  C.L. Peacock was in 
Co. Q, 2nd Battalion, "Georgia Sharpshooters."  His pension application was 
filed in Oct. 1912, a few months before this article appeared in the 
Confederate Veteran.  The pension application my be viewed in the Schley 
Military Archives.

The Sim Roper mentioned here originally enlisted in Co. F, 5th Ga. Inf., 
the "Cuthbert Rifles." His service record is as follows:

Roper, Simeon L.--Private May 10, 1861. Transferred to Co. H, Feb. 3, 1862; to 
Co. A, 2d Battn. Ga. Sharpshooters in 1862. Died in Chattanooga, Tenn. hospital 
Feb. 4, 1863. 



This file has been created by a form at http://www.poppet.org/gafiles/

File size: 5.1 Kb