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To shift for himself with one arm
Pettus Guards Private John McDonald wrote home on April 4, 1863, according to Jess N. McLean’s Official Records. “….well Susan, since I began this letter, one of our company has been discharged. David...
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The 13th at Old Capitol Prison and Fort Delaware
Of the sixteen soldiers of the 13th Mississippi who were captured on Marye’s Heights at Fredericksburg on May 3, 1863, fourteen were sent to the Old Capitol Prison in Washington City, according to Jess...
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A deserter
Fredericksburg, Wednesday, May 13, 1863. Spartan Band diarist William H. Hill wrote: Pettus Guards Private David W. Martin “deserted to the enemy last night by wading the [Rappahannock] river. He is a...
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Night on the battlefield
The survivors of the Mississippi Brigade retreated in the evening twilight of July 2, 1863, back to the Peach Orchard and the vicinity of the Sherfy farm. More than twenty Rebel cannon were awaiting...
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Battles: Cold Harbor
On the night of May 31, 1864, the First Corps, including the 13th Mississippi Regiment, marched for Cold Harbor. Plans called for getting onto Grant’s left flank and rolling it up while the rest of...
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Reward for the capture of a deserter
According to independent historian Jess McLean, a Mississippi newspaper ran a notice in late June, 1864, that was signed by Captain William F. Brown, company commander of the Pettus Guards. The...
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Battles: Berryville
History has dismissed the Battle of Berryville, Sept 3-4, 1864, as a minor engagement. But it was major enough for the diminished 13th Regiment and the rest of the Mississippi Brigade. The federals...
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Defending Richmond
There’s little extant information about the activities of the 13th Regiment and the rest of Kershaw’s division from November 1864 to early April 1865. Historians report no more than that the division...
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Desertions reached epidemic proportions
S.A. Gerald of Matagorda, Texas, wrote Confederate Veteran magazine after the war: “…for two or three months [in 1865]…I was on detail on the ‘dead line,’ on duty at night, the only object being to...
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The “stillness” at Appomattox
The less-than-one-company-sized pittance that was the 13th Mississippi Regiment at Appomattox Courthouse played no recorded role in the events surrounding General Lee’s formal surrender of the Army of...
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Christmas 1864: A serenade by the band
There wasn’t a good Christmas noted by a 13th Regiment letter writer, diarist or memoirist after 1861 in Leesburg. That was the last one where food was plentiful with all the comforts, even if...
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A letter home, Jan. 25, 1865
In early 1865, the last winter of the war, the remnant of the 13th regiment was in trenches, defending Richmond, between the New Market and Darbytown roads east of the capital city. These were days of...
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