posted July 4, 2009
Following the Civil War, efforts were made to collect information pertaining to the war for permanent archive records. Captain Wilson Parks Howell, leader of Company I, 25th Alabama Regiment, of Cleburne County, Al., was chosen to write a history of his regiment which he did and brilliantly so.
Captain Howell was a prominent Methodist minister and a most respected politician who helped formulate the 1901 Alabama Constitution and a charter for the city of Anniston. He also served in the Alabama legislature and was a surveyor for his county. He was the father of 10 children, was born in 1832 and died in 1911. He was the brother of my great-great-grandmother, Malinda Howell Grubbs.
Following is a tragic portion of what he wrote in his history of the Twenty-Fifth Alabama Regiment not too long before he died.
Shooting Four Men For Desertion
"It might not be out of place just here to give a brief account of the military execution of four unfortunate men. As already stated, after the army had fallen back to Dalton, Ga. and in camp there in the winter of 1863-64, four men of the Brigade who had the previous fall been sentenced to death by court martial for desertion were brought back to be executed.
Early one morning in February, orders were issued from brigade headquarters to the regiment commanders to have their regiments in readiness to go out to witness the execution of the condemned men. So at the appointed hour, the entire brigade was marched out about one mile from camp to an old field and formed in three sides of a square with one side being left open.
Rude coffins had been prepared for the condemned men and they were taken out of the guard house and each placed in an army wagon.
A heavy guard was placed around the wagons and they were driven out to the old field and then the four wagons with a prisoner in each wagon sitting on his coffin, were driven to the open side of the square and the four doomed men were taken out and were required to sit down on their coffins about 10 feet apart facing the square.
Four squads of nine men each had been detailed to do the shooting. These squads were marched up about 30 feet in front of the prisoners. Then, a like number of squads with nine men each came up and took the guns from the first squads and went off and loaded them and returned and handed the guns to the men of the original four squads.
In loading the guns, only part of them were loaded with balls, the balance being loaded with blank cartridges. Then an army chaplain offered public prayer. Following prayer, an officer rode up in from of the condemned men and read the charges and specifications of the crimes and the sentence of the court martial and he then retired from the scene. Another officer rode up just to the rear of the men who were to fire the fatal volley, the men holding their guns at shoulder arms, and gave the command, "Make ready."
Every gun came down in a firing position. The next command was "Take aim!" Every gun was leveled at its victim. The last and fatal command was "FIRE!" and in the twinkling of an eye, every gun was discharged and four men flay dead on the field.
It might not be amiss to state just here, that I had not seen the converted man that I had prayed with earlier, from the time I talked with him in the rear of our line at Missionary Ridge in November until he was brought back to Dalton to be executed. Just after he, with his unfortunate comrades in crime, were placed in position to receive their doom, sitting on his rude coffin, I went to him and shook his hand and asked him how he felt about his impending future, to which he responded in a very calm voice that he was ready to meet his Maker. After I had, at his request, knelt by his coffin and had offered a word of private prayer for him, and after he thanked me for my interest in his future welfare, I took his hand and gave him a promise that I would meet him in another place where there are no wars or troubles and I bade him a very sad goodbye.
Forty long years have come and gone since that tragic scene. Yet no event in a life of more than three score and ten years is more indelibly fixed on memory's page as the one I have just recorded. Following the shoting, the bodies of these four men in their rough coffins were placed in similar graves nearby their place of execution.
I here and now, as I have done heretofore, enter my solemn protest against such cruelty. It is in my judgment a kind of barbarism which should have no place in civilized warfare. It has been the military law of all nations to give the death penalty to the crime of desertion, especially when done in the face of the enemy during battle. Such cases should be tried in civil courts of the country when a man is brought into court for a crime that involves his life or liberty, and especially if he has no council,the state or court is required to furnish him this so that he may have a fair trial. In military courts in our army, this was not so, and as far as I am concerned, I believe other means of discipline would be as efficient as to kill men in such a barbaric manner except in extreme cases. I now return to my narrative of the Battle of Missionary Ridge."
Captain Howell and his company served until the very last battle of the Confederacy and he was wounded four times, ending up in a hospital in Virginia when Lee surrendered at Appomattox. He almost lost a leg but it was miraculously saved and he wound up walking most of the way back to his Alabama home on crutches."
Mildred Perry Miller
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