Page:1861 vs 1882. "Co. Aytch," Maury grays, First Tennessee regiment; or, A side show of the show (IA 1861vs1882coaytc00watk).pdf/162

156 Well, reader, every word of this is true, as is everything in this book. Both men loaded their guns and stepped out to their places. They were both to load and fire at will, until one or both were killed. They took their positions without either trying to get the advantage of the other. Then some one gave the command to "Fire at will; commence firing." They fired seven shots each; at the seventh shot, poor Johnny Reb fell a corpse, pierced through the heart.

Such was the fact. General Joseph E. Johnston had been removed, and General J. B. Hood appointed to take command. Generals Hardee and Kirby Smith, two old veterans, who had been identified with the Army of Tennessee from the beginning, resigned. We had received the intelligence from the Yankees.

The relief guard confirmed the report.

All the way from Rocky Face Ridge to Atlanta was a battle of a hundred days, yet Hood's line was all the time enfiladed and his men decimated, and he could not hold his position. Old Joe Johnston had taken command of the Army of Tennessee when it was crushed and broken, at a time when no other man on earth could have united it. He found it in rags and tatters, hungry and heart-broken, the morale of the men gone, their manhood vanished to the winds, their pride a thing of the past. Through his instrumentality and skillful manipulation, all these had been restored. We had been under his command nearly twelve months. He was more popular with his troops day by day. We had made a long and arduous campaign, lasting four months; there was not a single day in that four months that did not find us engaged in battle with the enemy. History does not record a single instance of where one of his lines was ever brokennot a single rout. He had not lost a single piece of artillery; he had dealt the enemy heavy blows; he was whipping them day by day, yet keeping his own men intact; his men were in as good spirits