Source: Confederate Veteran, Vol XXIII, April 1915, No. 4, page 163-165 RECOLLECTIOINS OF THE LAST BATTLE. By Dr. W. W. Grant, Denver, Colo. My father, Dr. Thomas McDonough Grant, of Russell County, Ala., was a physician and planter. I was born and reared on the farm, just eighteen miles from the scene of the last conflict. Animated by the enthusiasm and patriotic fervor common to the youth of the South, I was determined to "go to war." My father was a stern disciplinarian with his five boys, but lenient to the two daughters, Betty and Sally. My mother, in all the duties and humanities of life, was as true and lovable as she was tender and generous. I confided to her at the age of sixteen that if my father would not consent to my enlistment I would run away. It was not long before he took me in a buggy to Columbus; and though the enlistment officer made some objection to my frail physique, this was overruled, and I enlisted for the war in Capt. Nat Clanton's artillery company, which I joined at Pollard, Ala. This was an Alabama battery and constituted a part of the brigade of Gen. James H. Clanton, who was also an Alabamian. It was the latter part of 1863, and the command was in winter quarters. During 1864 we were in North Alabama most of the time - Marengo, Talladega, Mumford, and other places and we engaged in a small way in the battles of New Hope Church and Rome, Ga., and camped for a while at Marietta. In the winter of 1864 we were ordered back to Alabama. The Confederacy was hard pressed. In the early spring of 1865 Gen. James H. Wilson, with a large force of Federal cavalry, entered Alabama from Vicksburg. Our little force went from Demopolis to Selma, then to Montgomery, and as all strong opposition had ceased, and Wilson was meeting with no effective opposition, our company was ordered from Montgomery to Columbus, Ga. Here a small force of regulars and some militiamen, under the control of Gen. Howell Cobb of Georgia was stationed, ready to offer all possible resistance to the onward march of Wilson's Cavalry. At Montgomery, or Opelika General Wilson divided his forces, one part taking a more southern route and the other crossing the Chattahoochee River at West Point, Ga., fifty miles above Columbus. where a brisk engagement occurred, resulting in the death of Confederate General Tyler. Capt. Von Zinken, the red-headed mayor of Columbus, was active in the preliminaries and preparations for the defense of the city. Here the closing obsequies of my company and of the Confederacy were enacted. In the distinguished role of corporal (gunner), conferred upon me at Marengo by Lieutenant Goldthwaite, I entered last battle (or skirmish) and was still brimful of hope and enthusiasm for a cause already lost; but we did not then know that General Lee had surrendered on April 9 and that was in force between Generals Johnston and Shernam and fighting had ceased. Richmond was evacuated by the Confederate Cabinet, which held its last meeting at Washington, Ga., on May 4 and 5, 1868. Girard was a little village on the Alabama side of the river, directly opposite Columbus. Clanton's Battery was in position on the extreme right of Girard Heights above the second, or upper, bridge which spanned the Chattahoochee River. Tolstoy, in "Peace and War," Volume II., alluding to the conflicting versions of the battle of Schongraben by his heroes, says: "Their descriptions are more in accordance with their wishes than with the actual occurrences." Probably no relator is entirely free from this fault. Certain it is that so far the history of our War between the States has been only partially and incompletely written. Even eliminating such qualities as prejudice and passion, few men are so richly endowed as to write impartial and correct history, and it is a matter of common knowledge that hardly ,any two men with the best intentions would describe an ordinary event with the same accuracy. At about 9:30 in the evening of April 16 we heard distinctly the bugle call of the enemy in front of our line to charge. With our six- and twelve-pound brass howitzers we were ordered to commence firing at an estimated distance of fifteen hundred yards. The bridges and lower line of trenches were defended by other forces, including the artillery battalion of Maj. J. F. Waddell. The firing continued briskly for some time. I cannot recall the exact hour, but when the order to cease firing was given there was a hurried conference of officers of the company, and a little after midnight we received the sad and what proved to be the last order "to take care of ourselves. I was just eighteen miles from my home, which I had not seen since I left it a year before. Most of my comrades were from other parts of the State. We left the Girard hills in squads of six to twelve. I had visited Columbus from the age of seven or eight years, sometimes accompanying my father, but generally George, the negro driver, with six mules, taking six bales of cotton, weighing five hundred pounds each, to the Columbus market. Many a night as a lad had I slept under the wagon on the Girard hills and fallen asleep to the gentle moaning of the long-leaf pine and the subdued roar of the waters over the dam at the Mott Cotton Factory. I, therefore, knew something of the topography of the country. I left the battle line with a dozen comrades. We knew that Wilson's Cavalry was scouring the country for live stock, provisions, wagons, etc. We tramped over hills and through the woods, giving the public highways a wide berth to avoid capture, until five o'clock in the morning, when we lay down to rest in a pine thicket. We were not far from Salem, a station on the railroad from Opelika to Columbus. Knowing that clothing was scarce at home, I had put on an extra jacket and trousers, which had recently been issued, and when we stopped to rest I was perspiring freely. Soon I was so cold that I could not sleep. At sunrise we resumed our weary march, stopping now and then in diminishing numbers at the roadside homes for a bite of corn bread and some buttermilk. In the afternoon of April 17 four miles north of Crawford, the county seat of Russell County and twelve miles from my home, I parted with my comrades, supposing that the company would soon reassemble, probably at Montgomery, as the officers and most of the men were from that vicinity and the near-by counties. >From that day to this I have not seen an officer nor man of the company. Doubtless many, if not all, of them have since gone to that "country from whose bourn no traveler returns. In retrospection on the sad and unhappy days of my native home and section, the universal distress, the loss of life and