"some recollections of an old soldier"
by Asa M. Piper, C.o. C 62nd Regt. AL Vol. C.S.A.
This company was made up by J.W. Pitts and W.W. Wallace of Shelby County Alabama. We were sworn into service at Willisonville AL. Nov 3 1863.
But a few were over seventeen and one-half years old at the time. J.W. Pitts was elected Captain and W.W. Wallace Sr. 1st Lt. A.H. Ballard, 2nd Lt.
J. Morris 3rd Lt. George O. Bulter 1st Sgt. R.M. Honeycutt 2nd Sgt.
On the 9th of April the U.S. Troops charged our thin line (in ditches at Ft. Blakely) with the negroes first and we slaughtered them fast, some 2000 being killed in a few minutes with ground torpedoes and by shot and shell from the breastworks. Then we were charged by five lines of battle and captured on the eveing of the 9th On the 10th we were put on boats for Ship Island Prison where we landed on the 13th about 8 o'coloc a.m.
We were guarded by negro troops, most of them being from the south. They cursed us and called us all vulgar names they could think of, even callling us -------- and we had to take it or be shot. We had to carry wood on our shoulders from four to seven miles to cook our grub with. They fed us a quarter of a pound of salt horse and a half pint of yellow meal mush--only one meal of this per day.
On the morning of May 1st early-----they begin to load us on dismounted gunboats and we traveled on these to New Orleans. There we were put on smaller boats to Vicksburg.-----------There the good southern women and old men fed us all we could eat--good grub too."