In addition to this Major Fulcher's
battalion of four companies, with four hundred men (originally), was
afterwards attached to the regiment; and the Twenty-seventh Tennessee
Regiment was afterwards consolidated with the First. And besides this,
there were about two hundred conscripts added to the regiment from time
to time. To recapitulate: The First Tennessee, numbering originally,
1,250; recruited from time to time, 150; Fulcher's battalion, 400;
the Twenty-seventh Tennessee, 1,200; number of conscripts (at the lowest
estimate), 200--making the sum total 3,200 men that belonged to our
regiment during the war. The above I think a low estimate. Well,
on the 26th day of April, 1865, General Joe E. Johnston surrendered his
army at Greensboro, North Carolina. The day that we surrendered our
regiment it was a pitiful sight to behold. If I remember correctly,
there were just sixty-five men in all, including officers, that were
paroled on that day. Now, what became of the original 3,200? A grand
army, you may say. Three thousand two hundred men! Only sixty-five
left! Now, reader, you may draw your own conclusions. It lacked just
four days of four years from the day we were sworn in to the day of the
surrender, and it was just four years and twenty four days from the
time that we left home for the army to the time that we got back again.
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