Dan Masters' Civil War Chronicles

H aving missed most of the action at Fredericksburg, one Alabama soldier recalled the extraordinary meeting of the two armies during the flag of truce two days after the battle. “As soon as they saw the flag, one of them came a little forward and proposed a friendly meeting halfway,” he wrote a few days later. “We accepted, and a dozen or so of us went out and met them, shook hands, passed compliments, traded a little, and had a gay time. In a few minutes, the truce being refused, we all quickly took our places ready to change our friendly meeting into a bloody conflict. We agreed not to fire on each other that day unless the fight commenced.” Later that afternoon, a second flag of truce was agreed upon and again the men met to exchange the bodies of their dead comrades. “A large body of Yankees then came forward with litters to pick up our dead which they brought halfway and laid them down; about the same number of our men commenced picking up the Yankee dead and carrying them to

R iding over the Shiloh battlefield on April 8, 1862, Generals Alexander McCook and William "Bull" Nelson came across an old acquaintance lying upon the battlefield: George W. Johnson, the provisional Confederate governor of Kentucky. The 49-year-old, serving as a volunteer aide on the staff of General John C. Breckinridge, had a horse shot out from under him on April 6 th , then took his place as a private in the ranks of Co. E of the 4 th Kentucky on the 7 th . In the course of the fighting, Johnson suffered a mortal wound in the right thigh and abdomen.           I saw lying upon the ground a tall man dressed in gray jeans. I dismounted, approached him, and recognized him as a Kentucky Johnson and told him so,” McCook wrote years later. “He replied, ‘Yes, I am George W. Johnson, Confederate governor of Kentucky.’ He asked me to come nearer. I knelt beside him, better to hear what he had to say. He asked me if I was a Mason, I convinced him I was. He then told me he had

S ergeant Randolph Smedley of the 15 th Alabama recalled the electric effect seeing General Robert E. Lee had upon his regiment as they moved into action into the Wilderness on May 5, 1864.           “It seemed that every man went in determined to whip or die,” he informed his father. “As we were going in, we passed by General Lee. He raised his hat and said, “Go it, my brave Alabamians!” There is no telling how much good a kind word from such a general as Lee will do. When he spoke, although the balls were flying thick, every face brightened, each one took a quicker step, and when the order forward was given, a yell was raised and each one seemed to try to be the first to get a shot at the enemy.”           Sergeant Smedley felt sure that the bitter losses suffered by the Army of the Potomac in the ensuing battles would send Grant to the rear in disgrace, as had happened so many times before with other Federal commanders who had tangled with Lee and his army. “The Yankees, poor f