There is a monument at Gettysburg that bears his name; another has his written words. His Official Report (OR) authenticates that Confederates other than Virginians and Carolinians crossed over the stone wall, and it also establishes that Heth's Division was lined up with-not in support of-Pickett's Division in that famous charge. Colonel Shepard went up Cemetery Ridge in charge of the Seventh Tennessee Infantry Regiment; he came down the hill in charge of Archer's Light Brigade. He crossed over the famed stone wall. He may have been the first to hear General Robert E. Lee say, "It is all my fault." For a short time after Gettysburg, he was in charge of Heth's Division. He was in twenty battles during the Civil War. Six of these battles are listed as the bloodiest battles of the Civil War. But this book is about more than his Civil War exploits. After the war, he was elected to the 1870 Tennessee Constitutional Convention and subsequently elected to the House of Representatives. He was a lawyer, school superintendent, and farmer. He became a Baptist minister. This loving, charming, touching story could only have been written by his talented daughter, Alice Hughes Shepard Carver. Her story went unpublished for almost a century. Author Reta Moser has now authenticated it with additional facts, footnotes, photos, and articles.
Lieutenant Colonel S. G. Shepard
Commander of the Seventh Tennessee Infantry RegimentBy Reta Moser Alice Hughes Shepard CarveriUniverse, Inc.
Copyright © 2010 Reta Moser
All right reserved.ISBN: 978-1-4502-1731-6Contents
Acknowledgments..............................................................................................................ixForeword.....................................................................................................................xiiiPreface......................................................................................................................xvIntroduction.................................................................................................................1Chapter 1. Camp Trousdale....................................................................................................11Chapter 2. George Reminisces.................................................................................................20Chapter 3. Enter Jordan Robinson.............................................................................................26Chapter 4. War Is On.........................................................................................................33Chapter 5. George Prays All Night............................................................................................46Chapter 6. Confederates Holding Their Own....................................................................................52Chapter 7. Martha Jane Gets a Letter.........................................................................................58Chapter 8. The Secret Mission................................................................................................62Chapter 9. The Bradshaws Have Visitors.......................................................................................87Chapter 10. George Visits Martha Jane........................................................................................97Chapter 11. Gettysburg.......................................................................................................107Chapter 12. Grant Goes to Virginia...........................................................................................123Chapter 13. The Colonel Goes to Washington...................................................................................141Chapter 14. A Wedding........................................................................................................148Chapter 15. A New Beginning..................................................................................................154Chapter 16. Years Pass, Children Come........................................................................................173Chapter 17. A Little Schoolhouse Gets Built in the Cedars....................................................................186Chapter 18. A Father-Daughter Bond Grows.....................................................................................198Chapter 19. Life with the Shepard Family.....................................................................................213Chapter 20. A Marriage, a Death..............................................................................................239Chapter 21. Final Days.......................................................................................................251Epilogue.....................................................................................................................268Appendix A Report of Lieutenant Colonel S G Shepard, Seventh Tennessee Infantry-The Battle of Gettysburg.....................271Appendix B-Roster of Oiginal Company G, Seventh Tennessee Volunteer Infantry, CSA............................................276Appendix C-Memoirs of Colonel A John A Fite, Seventh Tennessee Infantry CSA..................................................277Appendix D-Private Sam.......................................................................................................281Bibliography.................................................................................................................287
Chapter One
Camp Trousdale
During the winter of 1860 and spring of 1861, the men of both the North and the South were being drawn very rapidly into the vortex of war. The secessionists had taken over almost all the forts, arsenals, and troops of the United States. The South, except for ammunition, was fairly well fixed for war. But if the South was to win in this conflict for "freedom" from the North with its larger population and vaster resources, she must have volunteers, many volunteers. The whole South was in a stir. Young men who had never been very far from home before were leaving for camps.
The day Fanny expected and dreaded had come-the day when George and Jake Magruder and the other neighbor boys who had been meeting Saturday afternoons all spring at the schoolhouse would be leaving for Camp Trousdale in Sumner County, Tennessee. Fanny presented George's group with a Confederate flag. It was a hot day that May twentieth when they left for camp.
They headed toward Camp Trousdale. Camp Trousdale was established as a training site for Tennessee Confederate soldiers. It was thirty-five miles north of Lebanon, forty miles north of Nashville, and located conveniently on the Louisville & Nashville Railroad. According to the Military Annals of Tennessee, it was here the Seventh Tennessee Infantry was organized on May 25, 1861 and none too soon for Tennessee, the last state to do so, was to secede June 8. It consisted of ten companies of which six were from Wilson, two from Sumner, and one each from Smith and DeKalb counties. Each company consisted of one hundred men. George's Company G called themselves the "Hurricane Rifles" because of the Hurricane creek near their homes that would rise like a hurricane.
As reported in the Military Annals of Tennessee, the Seventh was issued Mississippi rifles, which were different from that of any other regiment in Tennessee. The Mississippi rifles were kept for the first two years but then replaced by the Springfield and Enfield rifles because the Confederacy could no longer procure the ammunition.
Fanny slept very little the night before. She spent the night rolling and tossing or slipping off onto her knees by the bed to pray. After the hard night, she and George were up and out early the next morning. He had things to do at the last hour. The wagons and mules and horses to take the men as far as the river would be leaving at ten o'clock. George was ready by nine. "Why did he get ready so soon?" Fanny moaned to herself. He too was irritated with himself for being in such a hurry. For once, he had overdone his promptness. And now the minutes dragged by like hours.
Fanny would live with their sister Sallie and Sallie's husband, William Bradshaw, while George was away. They were coming for her this morning. George kept looking down the road for them. He went out to the barn to make sure that everything was done that he could do there before leaving. While he was out there, Jake came to say goodbye to Fanny. She had hoped he wouldn't come. She hated goodbyes. When she saw him nearing the gate, she looked around nervously for George. Where on earth was he? Why didn't he stay around where he was needed!
Jake, the deliberate, never-in-a-hurry man, now seemed to be in a hurry. He came onto the porch with a determined look and clipped words. "Miss Fanny," he began, when he had reached the first step, and...
