The Quarterly of the Texas State Historical Association, Volume 12, July 1908 - April, 1909 Page: 310
332 p. : ill. ; 23 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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Texas Historical Association Quarterly.
date for the lieutenant colonelcy of our battalion, as we should be
ordered to fill that office. He insisted that there was not the
slightest doubt of my election. I thought him correct, but de-
clined from a purely patriotic sense of duty, thinking it best for
my country. The battle between desire for the position and duty
to my country was a strong one, and I have ever since regretted
that I did not accept; because, for reasons that I do not think it
wise to write, I believe it would really have inured to my country's
good.
In a few days we resumed our march en route for Holly Springs;
and soon the news of our defeat at Shiloh, which had been fought
while we lay at Vicksburg, and the death of our loved Sidney
Johnston came to us. For about two weeks we lay camped on an
unsheltered hill some ten miles south of Holly Springs. General
Price, with his Missouri troops, lay just south of us. Here we
encountered real wintry weather. We were next ordered seven
miles north of Holly Springs, where General Tighlman was quar-
tered at a farm house. Here my health broke down completely,
and I felt obliged to resign. It filled me with grief to do so;
but I was assured by the best medical talent in the army-and
subsequently by many other medical men-that I had tuberculosis
in its initial stage. I had twice had hemorrhages from the lungs;
so resolution gave way, and I tendered my resignation. It was
accepted unconditionally. Colonel Waul assured me that, because
of my feeble health, he had been expecting it for three months.
A few days after this, we were ordered to make a change of
front, throwing us around Holly Springs, where we lay three days.
During this time, I had resumed command of Company D by
order of the colonel commanding. After three days more, Gen-
eral Tighlman ordered a retreat of twenty or thirty miles south.
He had been captured at Fort Donelson and subsequently ex-
changed, and I suppose he was unwilling again to take the chances.
I must have kept better posted than he, for I knew there was no
danger of an advance of the enemy. They had about twenty
skeleton regiments fifteen or twenty miles north of us, but this
body of troops had been depleted till it was too weak to advance.
But Tighlman's retreat invited the enemy to advance, which they
did after a time, though not immediately. Well I had naught to
detain me where I had felt constant dissatisfaction with the weak,310
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Texas State Historical Association. The Quarterly of the Texas State Historical Association, Volume 12, July 1908 - April, 1909, periodical, 1909; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101048/m1/348/: accessed March 29, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.