Sam R. Watkins' Story

Sam R. Watkins was a Confederate soldier from Columbia, Tennessee. At age twenty-one, Watkins joined the First Tennessee Regiment along with one hundred and nineteen other young men and boys. He was one of only seven men to survive every one of its battles. He writes a memoir twenty years after being in the war about his experience as a private. Watkins juxtaposes stories of horror and gruesome death with humorous memories throughout his four years in the war.

Though morale became very low toward the end of the war, Watkins recounts the passion the privates felt for both the war and for their beloved South. He believed that the Confederate Army were “…trying to protect their homes and families, their property, their constitution and their laws, that had been guaranteed to them as a heritage forever by their forefathers.” Though slavery was an issue, it was not the primary concern and was rarely mentioned in the memoir. However, Watkins did write that any man who owned twenty or more slaves back home was allowed to leave the army, and he notes the war “…was a rich man’s war and a poor man’s fight”. The South and its inhabitants especially believed that they were fighting for the faith that each state was a separate sovereign government, as laid down by the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. Many southerners felt that the North was invading their country and doing despicable things all under the name of the “Union”, and that the war was a necessary last resort after all efforts to conciliate the North had already been made.

Living conditions in the...

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...ut Co. Aytch, Watkins repeatedly writes to the reader that he was but a private during the war with limited perspective. Indeed, his description of a private often includes the words, “…we weren’t allowed to know anything”. The account was made easier to read with interspersed humorous memories, such as finding mussels and searching for a way to cook them, only to become very ill the next day, and crossing a wide river with stolen corn. Watkins’ memory seems to have retained these stories as much as some of the battles, though I wonder if he includes these stories intentionally to hold complete gloom at bay. Nonetheless, I think this primary source is effective in the validity of the information despite the biased point of view.