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Snapshots of Soldier Life |
Some 2,600 Confederates were killed at Chickamauga, September 18-20, 1863. Among
them was a 23-year-old officer known to his comrades "as grand a soldier as ever went
into battle whose loss was deeply deplored by the whole regiment and brigade." |
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merchant in Selma. The war's outbreak interrupted his business career in 1861, when Kidd enlisted in Company A, 4th Alabama Infantry. Eventually elected captain, he survived two years of campaigns and battles while serving with the Army of Northern Virginia, including ferocious fighting at Gettysburg where his company suffered 50 percent casualties below Little Round Top. These heavy losses still weighed heavy on Kidd's mind two months later when the 4th Alabama left Virginia by train as part of General James Longstreet's corps to bolster Confederate forces in north Georgia. The regiment belonged to Hood's division, its brigade of five Alabama regiments commanded on September 19, 1863, by Colonel James L. Sheffield. Intense fighting between West Chickamauga Creek and the LaFayette Road had consumed eight hours already that day when Sheffield's brigade, separated from its division, entered the fray unsupported just west of the Brock Field at 4 p.m. The Alabamians rolled into a Federal brigade of General John M. Palmer's division. "They charged us at once," Palmer reflected, "and were received with a volley which did not check them." Swept back in disorder, Palmer's men were in imminent danger of being routed but timely arrival of Union reinforcements stopped Sheffield's advance with a furious countercharge. The Confederate line, broken in two, was thrown back nearly 400 yards. Palmer later characterized this fight as a "lively little affair." Although soon ordered back to their earlier positions, the Federals loudly cheered a temporary triumph. Captain Kidd was unable to hear the enemy's spirited display. Early in the 4th Alabama's assault he was seen exhorting his company to move "Forward, men, forward! Onto victory!" As bullets from one of the first Union volleys crashed through the trees and underbrush, Kidd crumpled to the ground -- shot through the heart and instantly killed. That night family friend John Stone, Kidd's personal servant named Joe and several members of Company A found the lifeless body, and carried it on a tarpaulin to the rear. Joe dug a grave and the dead captain was buried beneath a large oak tree. Before leaving, Joe notched the bark and with his master's sword, scabbard, knapsack, pocketbook containing $140 and buttons cut from Kidd's uniform, started on the journey from Chickamauga to Selma. Word of the young officer's death reached Kidd's sisters, Susan and Virginia, by telegram. Understandably, both were consumed by unspeakable grief. Susan's husband, Benjamin J. Duncan, immediately left to bring the body home while preparations were made at a local cemetery to receive it. But Duncan could not get beyond the lines, though he learned Kidd had been buried on the battlefield and that Joe was returning. There was nothing to do but wait. After several weeks Joe reached Selma and sorrowfully presented Susan with her brother's sword and remaining effects. Kidd's estate, worth $31,194, was administered by his brother-in-law and divided equally between the two sisters. After expenses and deducted losses each received $7,465. Joe was purchased by Ben Duncan for $3,000. For the remainder of the war, the military situation in north Georgia prevented further attempts to retrieve Kidd's remains. Susan's desire, however, never wavered to have them brought home and properly buried beside their mother. Finally, in the summer of 1866, John Stone volunteered to travel to Chickamauga with Joe and superintend arrangements for the body's shipment to Alabama. This post-war quest also proved fruitless, for on July 30 Stone wired Susan: "After a search on the battle field of two days, we succeeded in finding the grave, but the remains had been dis-interred ... and probably carried to Chattanooga and reinterred." Years passed, and Susan discovered that many of the Chickamauga dead had been buried in the Confederate Cemetery at Marietta, Georgia. A search revealed that the names of those laid there did not include her brother's. Other unidentified casualties were interred in Chattanooga. But to this day, the final resting place of Captain Reuben Vaughan Kidd remains unknown. [Sources: Alice V. D. Pierrepont, Reuben Vaughan Kidd: Soldier of the Confederacy (Petersburg, Va.: privately published, 1947); John M. Palmer, Personal Recollections of John M. Palmer: The Story of an Earnest Life (Cincinnati: The Robert Clarke Company, 1901). Photo courtesy of Dale S. Snair]. |
