The Montgomery advertiser., 1906-04-12

Sketch of incidents in war of 1881 to 1865. as seen by a private member of semple's Battery. setting forth the part this battery | OK on the firing line in various battles as seen by him.
 and embracing the names of its mem
 bers from first to last S far as Le can remember
 Semples Battery was originally or
 ganized as Marks Artillery. and mus tered into the Confederate service in the Estelle Hall in the city of Mont gomery. Ala, on the 7th day of March. 1882. The. following day. March Sth. the company boarded the river steamer
 Jeff Davis. which left for Mobile about II D. m. and where it arrived at Mobile about 10 a. m.. March 11th. There we were transferred to the steamer Dixie. and carried down to the mouth of Dog river in Mobile Bay. We then vent up D,g river to the ole cotton factory. where camp was pitched. The compa- ny was drilled there in squad drills until our guns arrived, which was about the last of March. The company received six twelve pound Napoleon guns. but we did not have, horses enough at that time to move them. and as the horses had to be procured and trained, it was about two months be- fore the company was ready for &C., LIVE StIflct GO tHC Ddltcky was HOb ordered from camp on Dog river until the ninth of July.
 On that date we mo. d up to Mobile. and camped in the city about ten days. We then were put eboarc the steamer Jeff Davis" and steamed up to Selma. Ala. There we were placed aboard a train on the Selma, Rome and Dalton Railway. and carried up as far as the road was completed, the terminus be- ing Blue Mountain. From there we marched overland to Chattanooga. Tenn, where we joined the army of General Braxton Bragg and became a
 part of Buckner's Division. We were then marched through Tennessee to Bardstown, Ky.
 On the 9th of November 1862, we
 moved forward and engaged the ene- my at Perryvi11e. Ky, where the com pany lost one man killed fGreen Mitch elD, and two wounded. The next day the battery passed through Harrods- burg and took, a position known as Camp Dick Robinson" remaining | there twelve days, while the army was | recuperating. Then we commenced a forced march Tor Cumberland Gap, which required three days and nights on one days subsistence. We, arrived at Knoxville on the 2sth of November. On this march it was necessary for the men to cut bushes to feed the poor,
 
 Knoxville in the midst of a heavy snow storm. We remained there about sev- en days losing one man (John Holly Murphy), by pneumonia. We then marched down the Tennessee river some distance. and crossed Cumberland ing the Nashville a:3 Chattanooga Railway at Deckard. Tenn. Staying there a few days we moved on to Triune where we pitched camp. On the 2Sth of December. 1882. we moved forward to Murfreesboro, arriving there on the night of the 1yth.
 On the 31st we took part in the bat tie of Murfreesboro. being engaged on the firing line all day. losing two men. January 1, 1863, the battery was not engaged, but in the afternoon of the End General Bragg sent an order to General Pat Cleburne to send Semple's Battery to General Breckjnbridge's Di- vision. General Cleburne only sent four guns of the battery right and left sections, keeping the center section with his own division In the battle to the left of General Breckinridge. The sections attached to General Breckin- ridges command lost one gun, five men killed. Lieut.. James Pollard, Pri- yates Clements, Tatum, Adams and Riley, fourteen men wounded and six horses killed. On the night of the 4th the army fell back to Tufahoma, Tenn, and went into winter quarters until the middle of March. During the time the battery was at Tulahoma Capt. Semple turned over one of his guns to the Ordnance Department and kept a four gun battery the remain der of the war as he was short of men and horses from wounds. sickness and death.
 We then moved with the army up to Wartrace Tenn, and skirmished with the enemy every few days until tile 1st of June. then moved back to Chat tanooga- The battery was then or Lookout Mountain and in a few days was ordered up the Tennessee river to Tvner's Station on the Chattanooga and Knoxville Railway. Just after passing through Chattanooga the train that was carrying us ran off the track and in the wreck all the wheels and wood work of the guns was so badly broken up that we went into camp at the sce..e of the reck and waited two weeks for new carriages. On the ar- rival of these we were ordered up the river ten miles above Chattanooga to guard the crossing. In about two weeks we were ordered to Lafayette, Ga, and while there General Cleburne's Division engaged a corps of Rosecrans' army in McLemore's cove.
 Semples Battery fought an artillery duel with six gun battery of the enemy composed of two ten pound ri- fles and four twelve pound smooth bore guns. We only had four twelve pound Napoleons. The enemy was un- der cover of a thicket and heavy tim Der. where we could not locate them except by the smoke of their guns. Semples Battery was in an open field with no cover. about five hundred yards between them and the enemy. The enemy opened first, for we did not discover them until they fired the first shots We got into position in short order and fired rapidly for about