Page:Minutes of the Immortal Six Hundred Society 1910.djvu/14

Rh, being placed in command of the provost-guard, in which capacity he served until the battle of Chicamauga. The duty of the provost-guard was to look after stragglers, a position which kept the guard in the rear and practically out of danger. But at Chicamauga learning that the senior officers of his company had killed or wounded, the young soldier then only about twenty years of age, reported to the commanding general on the field of battle and asked to be transferred from detached duty back to active service. This was done and he was thus sent to the relief of his company and took command. This act of unusual bravery and gallantry at a time when so many officers were being shot down was recognized and appreciated by the commanding officers and was heartily commended in official reports.

Mr. Ewing's command was with Gen. Bushrod Johnson on his raid into upper East Tennessee. Return was cut off by the Federals and so the command passed into Virginia. Thus it happened that Mr. Ewing was made a prisoner of war at Petersburg, Va., and was sent to Fort Delaware. This leads to a very trying ordeal through which he passed.

At the outbreak of the war the Confederates seized and held Fort Sumpter in Charleston harbor, S. C. The Federals however fortified an island nearby from which they began a bombardment of the residence portion of Charleston, near the water front, in 1864. These residences were occupied by non-combatants, women and children, and to stop the bombardment the Confederates placed a band of Federal prisoners along the shore. In retaliation for this the Federals sent to Fort Delaware and brought down six hundred Confederate officers, Z. W. Ewing being included in the number, and placed them in front of the fortification on the island so the Confederates could not fire on the forts without killing their own men. The Confederates looked upon the use of prisoners to protect women and children and private property as very different from the use of picked officers to protect well-equipped soldiers inside a fortification. This band of Confederate officers was kept under fire for several weeks when the survivors were moved to Fort Pulaski and kept on short rations until they were almost starved. When they were returned to Fort Delaware later they were so emaciated that the authorities would not send them to Richmond for exchange, and thus they were kept in prison till the close of the war.