XXXVII

For good spell from the Winter of '62 into the Summer of '63, the Army of Tennessee occupied positions along the upper Duck River Valley at the far northern reaches of the Nickajack. General Bragg, who looked like a terrier and was quite as irascible, had completely outturned the Union positions in the Nickajack, temporarily relieving the Yankee occupation of that region. This was welcomed with tepidity by the locals. The Greeks were concerned their next cotton harvest would be purchased by Richmond's agents in worthless Confederate dollars or worse, Confederate bonds. Worse yet for the yeomanry and poor whites, Richmond's agents rounded up a fat class of conscripts who had heretofore avoided the draft due to the Yankee occupation. They were sardonically called the "Class of '63" by the Limestone County Board of Enrollment, who pitied them all.

General Bragg donated soldiers to help round up this class of Nickajack draftees, many of whom had fled into the woods and bottoms of Limestone County, or thrown themselves at the mercy of the Rats to avoid conscription. That was the flight of the intrepid. The Greeks simply bought substitutes, but most of the others were swept up by General Bragg's soldiers and allotted to Alabama regiments across the Confederacy. Many of these allotments were composed of friends, who were still given the choice to serve together.

And so a group of a dozen friends were shipped up to Virginia as replacements for Company F, 4th Alabama Infantry Regiment - The Limestone Grays. They were mostly sons of Athenian burghers and who attended the same school on Hine Street, the Edgewood Academy. They called themselves the Hine Street Bandits, for they had been rascals about town before the war. Several of them brought instruments, and were warmly welcomed into Company F, who had lost most of their musicians during hard campaigning.

The Limestone Grays had lost most of their original volunteers. Theodore Hobbes, who had organized the regiment, was dead. So was Branse Havelock's father. Both were felled at Sharpsburg, which is called Antietam up North. Whoever survived that furious day would subsequently fall trying to push Colonel Joshua Chamberlain and the 20th Maine off Little Round Top. The Grays were there, at the high water mark of the Confederacy. After the Battle of Gettysburg, General Lee had fallen back and positioned his Army of Northern Virginia along the Rapidan River in Virginia for a long interlude of rest. That's when the Hine Street Bandits arrived in camp as replacements, virgin as the first fallen snow to the trials that awaited them on the battlefield. Luckily for them, they arrived at a long period of inactivity by the Union Army of the Potomac.

It gave the Bandits time to adjust to new friends, who were hardened veterans all. Most of the Grays by this point weren't even from Limestone County. They were conscripts rounded up from all over the Old Dixie. But these veterans warmed up to the Bandits when they would break out their instruments and start to pick out tunes by the campfire.

One of the boys was named Amos, who was a big fellow and was an incredible banjo picker. He wore steel rimmed glasses and always looked short of breathe everywhere he went. He'd budge his pal Skinny Southers begging for a tune.

Hey Skinny. How about some of that good ole Dan Tucker for the fellas?

Skinny couldn't play, but he could belt out a tune like no other while tapping the tambourine. And with the other Bandits like Chip Hollow and Fred Rankin and Lincoln Woodcuff and all the others would join in singing and playing along.

Old Dan Tucker was a fine old man
Washed his face with a fryin' pan
Combed his hair with a wagon wheel
And died with a toothache in his heel

Get out the way, Old Dan Tucker
You're too late to get your supper
Get out the way, Old Dan Tucker
You're too late to get your supper

The circulation of whiskey and 'hasheesh' was rife in the Confederate Army of that time, and during the long and welcome period of quiet along the Rapidan front, spirits grew high after the loss of Gettysburg. One who appreciated that was Captain Noah Amherst, who taken command of Company F from Tennessee and was a cousin of Burnside Lee. Morale had been so low after the retreat from Pennsylvania. The music was welcomed among so many homesick boys.

But all this quiet in the frontlines was about to change. In the Spring of '64, Ulysses S. Grant had assumed command of the Army of the Potomac after repulsing General Bragg's Army of Tennessee at Chattanooga. Grant had big plans to end the war quickly, and it involved bloodletting the Confederacy of its youth in an all out lunge against General Lee's throat. The quiet welcome for the Bandits was about to come to an abrupt end. For Captain Amherst, he knew it wouldn't last forever. He only hoped the music would still play for those left to hear it.