But while Jo Anzalone’s story about her great great grandfather Jonathan James McDaniel, who was a private in the Winston Guards, is in the form of a novel, Ralph Poore’s “Poore Boys In Gray” is non-fiction. And it includes a third Confederate ancestor, his great grandfather William B. Poore of the 16th Mississippi Infantry Regiment.

Ralph Poore’s challenge (like mine, for that matter) was to write of these men who left no diaries or letters about their wartime experiences. He (as have I) found independent historian Jess N. McLean’s history of the 13th regiment indispensable. But Poore has also added census and other documentary evidence (including family lore) to piece together the pre- and post-war lives of William B. and his two brothers.

I’m reading the book now and plan to review it at Amazon where it’s for sale as a Kindle ebook. If you have a Kindle, try the free sample. Like me, I expect you’ll be hooked to read more. Meanwhile, you should also check out Poore’s new blog on the book.

They traveled 130 miles, crossing the Savannah River and arrived at Augusta, Georgia about 11 p.m.

They left Augusta at 1 p.m. the next day, a clear and warm Wednesday. They rode 170 miles on the Georgia State Railroad, arriving in Atlanta, at sunrise on the 17th. After a layover of a few hours, they changed trains and headed north on the Western & Atlanta Railroad, for another 120 miles, arriving at Dalton, Georgia at 2 a.m. on Friday, the 18th.

The brigade continued on, finally arriving at their unloading point, according to independent historian Shelby Foote “four miles short of Ringgold and 965 circuitous miles” from where they began in Virginia. They marched to a bivouac a few miles east of Ringgold.

They were without their division commander for, as Foote wrote in his three-volume history of the war, General McLaws “was charged with hurrying the last infantry elements northward from Atlanta.” Indeed, McLaws was trying to stop Longstreet’s Georgia troops from dispersing.

“…my room has literally been besieged by applicants for leave of absence,” McLaws wrote his wife Sept. 19 from his Atlanta hotel room, “if but for one day, for husbands or sons to visit their parents & families, all of which I have had to refuse—many men I am sorry to say have gone off without permission, all of them however to return in a day or two. So I am told and sincerely hope.”

Meanwhile, Humphreys Brigade was to be paired with General Joseph Brevard Kershaw’s single brigade, in a light division commanded by Kershaw, whose date-of-rank was older.

Hill stayed in Dalton and spent the day with his brother Gus. He finally found the 13th regiment at 5 p.m. “at the first burnt bridge at Chickamauga Creek in Catoosa County.”

17th Regiment diarist Robert A. Moore, meanwhile, had left Columbia, South Carolina, “on the mail train at 6 a.m.” on the 16th to catch up with the brigade. He got to Augusta about sunset.

“This is a very beautiful city,” Moore wrote in his diary. “The ladies at Orangeburg & other places on our route to-day were very kind.”

He arrived in Atlanta about sunrise on Thursday, catching another train at 11 a.m. northeast to Marietta, Georgia. There he was surprised at what he found.

“Have been lying over here for some time waiting for the trains from above [i.e. farther northwest],” he recorded. “This town contains a great many exiles & refugees. There are a good many sick here.”

Moore finally caught a train ride to Dalton, arriving “sometime during the night” after midnight on Friday, the 18th. He stayed there until about 10 a.m. when he caught a ride to the brigade’s bivouac near Ringgold “which is as far as the cars run.”

“Are cooking up 1 days [sic] rations,” Moore added. “Cannonading in front all evening, suppose the cavalry are skirmishing.”

That night, Humphreys Brigade, including the 13th, 17th, 18th and 21st Mississippi regiments, rested in their bivouac a  mile or so east of the railhead at Ringgold, listening to the sounds of battle in the west. Knowing they would be in it before long.

Along the way on their trip of 110 miles, the famous, middleaged Confederate diarist Mary Boykin Chestnut saw them as their flat cars passed by.

“At Kingsville I caught a glimpse of our army,” she wrote in a letter apparently begun four days earlier. ”Longstreet’s corps was going West. God bless the gallant fellows! Not one man was intoxicated; not one rude word did I hear. It was a strange sight one part of it.

“There were miles, apparently, of platform cars, soldiers rolled in their blankets, lying in rows, heads all covered, fast asleep. In their gray blankets, packed in regular order, they looked like swathed mummies.

“One man near where I sat was writing on his knee. He used his cap for a desk and he was seated on a rail. I watched him, wondering to whom that letter was to go home, no doubt. Sore hearts for him there….

“A feeling of awful depression laid hold of me. All these fine fellows were going to kill or be killed. Why? And a phrase got to beating about my head like an old song, The Unreturning Brave. When a knot of boyish, laughing, young creatures passed me, a queer thrill of sympathy shook me. Ah, I know how your home-folks feel, poor children!”

The brigade arrived in Columbia at 2 a.m. on Sept. 15, 1863. They stayed six hours, according to Spartan Band diarist William H. Hill, before the train rolled on at 8 a.m., in clear and warm weather, bound for Augusta, Georgia.

That was long enough for 17th Mississippi Regiment diarist Robert A. Moore, commanding the Confederate Guards of Company G, to be left behind.

“I with several friends proceeded from the depot to the City,” Moore recorded. “The train left us and we had to remain here all day. This is a pleasant and beautiful city. The State house when completed, will be a magnificent building. The city is handsomely laid off, the streets are wide and most beautifully shaded. Have spent the day quite agreeably.”

President Davis preferred that Lee himself go West, according to Shelby Foote, but “Lee demurred.” Davis acquiesced and by Sept 8, 1863, “the designated troops were on the move” to Northwest Georgia.

Four days later, a Saturday, the 13th Regiment “arrived at Weldon North Carolina at sunrise this morning,” Spartan Band diarist William H. Hill recorded.

Weldon was a small village on the Roanoke River and though “nothing more than a few houses and a grocery or two,” according to 17th Regiment diarist Robert A. Moore, Hill wrote that it “is the junction of several railroads.” They had traveled 63 miles from Petersburg.

Humphreys’ “Brigade left Weldon at 2 p.m.,” Hill continued, “on the Raleigh and Gaston Railroad for Raleigh,” a distance of 97 miles. They made Raleigh about 2:30 a.m. on Sept. 13, where Moore said they were not allowed to leave the depot “owing to the little difficulty…a few days since” when some Georgia troops sacked the printing plant of the Raleigh Standard newspaper.

“The people of Raleigh & vicinity,” Moore continued, “are very disloyal.”

After a delay of two hours, they rolled on, passing through Hillsboro at noon, and Greensboro at 8 p.m.

“We met with a slight accident at the Yadkin River Bridge,” Hill wrote. “One of the cars ran off the track and several of the soldiers were bruised by the jolting, but none were seriously hurt.”

Most of the troops were riding on open flat cars, around the wheels of field pieces tied down in the center. Longstreet’s aide Moxley Sorrell marveled at it, recording that:

“Never before were so many troops moved over such worn-out railways. Never before were such crazy cars—passenger, baggage, mail, coal, box, platform, all and every sort wobbling on the jumping strap-iron—used for hauling good soldiers.”

Hill wrote that they arrived at Charlotte, North Carolina, in clear and warm weather, at 8 a.m. on Monday, Sept. 14, having covered 179 miles from Raleigh.

“The ladies are out to-night to welcome us,” Moore added. “They have nice viands [meats] which is very acceptable to the souldiers. God bless the ladies.”

Crossing into South Carolina, they were again rewarded with attentive citizens who “received us very kindly,” Hill wrote, “and at several depots the soldiers were provided with a bountiful supply of provisions, gratis.”

“The waggons and teams belonging to our command are being turned over to the Government,” 17th Regiment diarist Robert A, Moore recorded.

The brigade left Hanover Junction on the cars at noon on Thursday, Sept. 10, according to Spartan Band diarist William H. Hill, bound for Richmond. Enroute, he continued, there was an accident.

“The train that carried the 13th Mississippi Regiment was run into by a heavy train containing ordnance, but as we were moving very slow, but little damage was done. Most of the soldiers saw the train before it struck and jumped off.”

Some, however, were injured. One of them was Captain Richmond C. Jamison, of the Lauderdale Zouaves, who suffered a broken arm. He was admitted to General Hospital No. 4 in Richmond.

The brigade arrived in Richmond about 4 p.m., formed and “marched from the depot through the city,” Hill recorded, “across the James River to Manchester and camped.”

They boarded another train the next morning, Friday, Sept. 11, about 9 a.m. and, after riding about twenty miles, they arrived at Petersburg just after noon.

“Petersburg is a beautiful city of about 25,000 inhabitants,” Hill wrote. “It is situated on the Appomattox River at the head of navigation. Five railroads center at this place…The principal trade of this place is tobacco manufacturers.”

“Have spent the evening very pleasantly strolling over the city,” Moore recorded. “Petersburg is a very nice and pleasant old city. We will leave South at 9 p.m.”

Heh. Well that’s one way of putting it. Read it all here and have a wonderful 2012.

That evening, however, the 13th Regiment received orders to “cook 3 days of rations…and be ready to move at daylight in the morning.”

“We are to march very early,” 17th Mississippi diarist Robert A. Moore wrote. “Many are the conjectures as to where we will go.”

Humphreys’ Brigade broke camp the next morning in a warm, heavy fog. Hill recorded that they marched twenty miles, crossing the North Ana at the Davenport Birdge, and the Virginia Central Railroad at Beaver Dam Station. They camped beside the tracks of the Central Virginia R.R. five miles from Beaver Dam Station on the road to Hanover Junction.

“We were expecting to get on the cars at Bever Dam Station,” Moore wrote, “but will have to march through to the Junction.”

“It has become well settled with the souldiers” Moore concluded, that Humphreys Brigade was leaving Virginia again, this time bound for Chattanooga, Tennessee.

It was a clear and warm Wednesday and Hill concluded of their camp on the North Anna River that “it is very probable that we will stay here for several weeks.”

Indeed, 17th Mississippi diarist Robert A. Moore wrote:

“These are indeed quiet times with the A. of Nrhn Va. Not a rumor afloat to excite the imagination of the most credulous…The nights are cool.”

There was little for the remaining troops to do over the next several days, Moore continued, other than clean weapons, stand inspections and read “a large number of” distributed religious tracts “with profit to their morals.”

By Sunday, Sept. 6, there was preaching in the morning following inspection and church services in the Tavern that evening. “A Sabbath well spent is a relief to one’s conscience,” Moore concluded.

“We received orders just before noon,” 17th Mississippi diarist Robert A. Moore recorded, “& had to march very suddenly.”

They marched about 8 miles, according to Spartan Band diarist William H. Hill, crossing the Davenport Bridge and camped near there on the south side of the river.

They moved a few miles the next day, about 1 p.m. Sunday, Aug. 30, to a new spot on the Virginia Central R.R. near Green Bay in Hanover County.

“We are here,” Moore wrote, “to guard against a raid of the enemy that is expected from the Peninsular. The country around here is mostly poor—the people are very kind.”

They stayed through Monday, drilling, Hill recorded, while the enemy advanced to about 15 miles east of Richmond before retreating back to the vicinity of Williamsburg. On Tuesday, Sept. 1, the brigade marched at daylight, making 10 miles in a return to its previous camp near Waller’s Tavern, on the north side of the North Anna River.

“All feel much livlier since our little tramp,” Moore wrote. “Capt. Clayton left us to go to Richmond. He will not be able for duty in the field any more.”

Clayton’s departure meant that Moore assumed command of the 17th’s Company G, the Confederate Guards, from Marshall County, Miss.

The next day, Wednesday, was clear and pleasant, perfect for skedaddling, apparently.

“I released the prisoners & guard last night by the Gen.’s consent,” Moore recorded, “& gave them orders to report this morning but two of the prisoners failed to report, having run off during the night. Quite cool.”