March 2024
the enlisted man’s ticket, while his new friend traveled on the strength of his signed furlough. The pair fooled conductors all the way from the Virginia-North Carolina line to Augusta, Ga., a trip of over 500 miles on at least three roads. Of the conductors responsible for collecting the fares, Reed wrote that “not a single one ever showed that he suspected the trick.”
headed to his sister’s house. Reed, still in an embarrassed financial condition, headed for the Georgia Railroad depot, where he made his needs known. He received what he thought was a loan from a “large, fat benevolent looking man.” The citizen handed Reed $20 and walked away before Reed could record his name and address. “I saw he intended the money as a gift to a soldier,” Reed wrote, “and I thanked him.” Reed bought the ticket and rode west. “I paid my fare, and got my dinner at Union Point.”
Union Point by rail. Reed wrote nothing about that final leg of his journey home, but “In the afternoon I ran in on my wife and surprised her gloriously.”
arduous. Getting home required resourcefulness, some boldness, a bit of chicanery, a large portion
In Augusta, the enlisted man
Lexington is 26 miles from
The trip had been long and
The Artilleryman is a quarterly magazine founded in 1979 for enthusiasts who collect and shoot
cannon and mortars primarily from the Revolutionary War, Civil War to World War II.
of good luck and the generosity of a “large, fat, benevolent looking man.” “I had not lost a connection,” Reed boasted in his memoirs.
In recording his adventure, Reed didn’t say how many days he spent on this journey, but I estimate it took at least five. He did not state the date he left Bulls Gap, nor did he tell how long he stayed in Lexington. He gave few details about his return trip. He did write, however, that he re-joined his regiment in Virginia in time for the Battle of the Wilderness and the start of the Overland Campaign. On the way he helped two enlisted men from his regiment who were in trouble for overstaying their furlough. Like the sergeant who allowed him to keep his seat on the first leg of his rail journey, Reed exercised some irregular discretion and cut through red tape. The men got back to their unit instead of facing punishment for their misdeeds. They too fought at the Wilderness.
Reed later received an angry letter from an officer, a provost marshal, threatening to prefer charges against him for what he had done for the two miscreants. Reed wrote a reply to the officious communication, advising the provost marshal that instead of remaining under arrest the two men returned to their regiment and fought at the Wilderness. One was killed, Reed wrote, and the other severely wounded. That ended the matter. Reed suffered no consequences for his violation of policy, but the two privates in question certainly did.
John C. Reed returned to Georgia after the surrender and lived until Jan. 11, 1910. At the time of his death, he resided with his son in Alabama. His memoirs found their way to the Alabama
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Department of Archives and History where, as the Introduction to the memoirs states, they “lay unnoticed until the latter part of the 20th century.” Reed is buried in Atlanta’s Westview Cemetery.
*Cobb was the principal author of the Constitution of the Confederate States and later a brigadier general in the Confederate Army. He was killed at Fredericksburg.
Gould Hagler is a retired lobbyist living in Dunwoody, Ga. He is a past president of the Atlanta Civil War Round Table and the author of Georgia’s Confederate Monuments: In Honor of a Fallen Nation, published by Mercer University Press in 2014. He has been a regular contributor to CWN since 2016 with over 90 published columns. He can be reached at gould.hagler@gmail.com.