Customer Reviews

Co. Aytch: A Confederate Memoir of the Civil War

5 star:		(52)
4 star:		(12)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Sam Watkins did not intend to write a detailed history of the war, but rather to write of his personal experiences as a private soldier. And what experiences he had! As you read this book you wonder how he ever came out of the war alive - most of his friends and comrades did not. This is one of the most humorous, and one of the saddest, books I have ever read: the political humorist Will Rogers would be jealous. At times Watkins' stories had me convulsing with laughter, at other times near to tears. He tells of how, caught behind enemy lines, he figured out a way to get the Federal password/countersign: simply demand it of a Federal officer (they were stupider than the privates). Once he had that, he could roam around at will behind Federal lines for the rest of that day. He tells of how he and a friend were sitting on a log sharing a meal from the same plate when a someone yelled for him to "look out". In turning his head he was just missed by a solid shot. His friend, not so lucky, had all but his face swept away by the cannon ball - his brains feel into the plate from which they had been eating. Watkins also tells of the demise of a friend's pet rooster named "Fed" and the "election speeches" of two friends for the rank of corporal. Tears of laughter will run down your face as you read these............This is a wonderful book by a heroic man. I recommend it without reservation.

Twenty years after participating in the war that reshaped American history forever, Sam Watkins sat down to write his memoirs, without benefit of journal or notes. He commenced his tale with a short, folksy parable of the cause of the war, as Southerners saw it. He then quickly launched into telling the tale as he viewed it - not from the heights of a general officer, but from the mud and dust covered ground-eye view of a common "webfoot" infantry soldier. In doing so, he created what is perhaps the best, most readable, and most compelling account of a Civil War infantry man that has ever seen print.
Watkins told his tale in an easy, conversational style. The book is not written as a single narrative, but as a collection of tales and memories, just as he might have told them to friends and family around his hearth. His antidotal style put side by side humorous tales and the horrors of war that he observed, showing how casual a thing gruesome death became to a soldier. He wrote with great feeling, telling the reader when recalling a particular incident left him overwhelmed with emotion still after twenty years, and constantly referencing his religious faith that he would someday see all of his fallen comrades again in a better world. He hid nothing of himself, and that candid emotion sets his book apart, and gives it its greatness.
This book is not a history, per say. Watkins constantly reminded his readers of this. It is a collection of impressions of what it was like to be one of the little men doing the shooting and killing - the men who history mostly overlooks. "Co Aytch" fills in the yawning gaps of how war is really fought and experienced that you will never find in any general's memoirs. This book is essential for a full understanding of the Civil War, and it is a pleasure and a joy to read. I highly recommend it.

Theo Logos

This is the perfect civil war book and will satisfy the greenest novice or the most accomplished historian. Watkins writes brilliantly, naturally and in colloquial tones that have scarcely aged in the 130 years since he penned this memoir. It's exactly as if this marvelously likeable and funny soldier is sitting in your rocking chair, personally spinning yarns about his civil war experiences. It's that immediate and that real, as if you are accompanying him on every train, bivouac or battlefield.

Watkins becomes part of you as you read on, like a treasured friend or talisman. It doesn't matter what side of the conflict you're on, whether you're a confirmed Yankee or passionate Rebel, it's simply impossible not to adore Watkins and his deft touches with the pen. He describes the terror of going into battle, the strange exhilaration of the battles aftermath and the realization you are still alive. His best moments are describing a visit to a field hospital where he sees his best friends intestines opened up in a gaping wound, with only minutes to live. His pathos and deep sentiment are prevelent throughout the book.

Buy this book *now,* don't wait another moment. It's a book you will read and re-read throughout life, a deserved and enduring classic. Whether you care little or nothing about the American civil war, it matters little. This is a little masterpiece, pure and simple.

As the great author Bell Irvin Wiley put it, "No memoir by a Rebel participant is richer in detail than this engaging story..." There are plenty of Civil War memoirs available to us Civil War buffs today but those written by Confederate privates are few and far between. As another reviewer already stated, many memoirs that have survived are those by Union officers. This is simply the best Civil War memoir ever written in my opinion. It is brutally honest, tragic, & sometimes humorous, & is filled with rich details of the everyday life of the Confederate soldier: hard marches that never seemed to end, picket duty, the bloody battles he experienced as a private in the 1st Tenn. Regt. of the (Confederate) Army of Tennessee, etc. The combat descriptions are vivid & shocking: the desperate hand-to-hand combat in the trenches around Atlanta -"We were killing them by scores...", the bloodbath at Shiloh, the Confederate disaster at Nashville, etc. I'll never forget his descriptions of the "Dead Angle" at Kennasaw Mountain where Union regiment after regiment hurled themselves at the Confederate lines -"I am satisfied that on this memorable day, every man in our regiment killed from twenty to one hundred each". For anyone who wants to know what it was like to fight in the Civil War, this book is an absolute must-have!

Sam R. Watkins, a soldier of Company H, 1st Tennessee Regiment, C.S.A., wrote this book in the 1880s, twenty years after the fall of the Confederacy. It is his account of his personal experiences during the war. He fought in a large number of battles, and was one of the very few men in his outfit who lived to tell about it. This book is written through the eyes of a private in the Confederate Army. He does not attempt to explain the strategy of the war. He gladly "leaves that to the generals." In his account, Sam Watkins brings the war home to the common man. From the time he leaves his home in Columbia, TN, with bands playing and women cheering, until he is mustered out four years later, he takes the reader on an unforgettable experience. His descriptions of hand-to-hand combat, passing by on the field at Shiloh and seeing General Albert Sydney Johnston lying mortally wounded, and nervously standing guard alone and between two armies at night, will move you! He also presents the war in human terms. He talks about camp life, and tells colorful stories of body lice and how they raced them on plates. One soldier heated his plate on the fire before the race, so that his louse would crawl off his plate first, and he would win the contest. Sam Watkins also longs for the girl he left behind. He eventually marries her after the war is over, and at the time he is writing these memoirs, he is doing so "with a group of young Rebels clustering around my feet." THIS BOOK IS ONE OF THE BEST PERSONAL ACCOUNTS OF THE WAR FOR SOUTHERN INDEPENDENCE THAT I HAVE EVER READ!

After reading Co. Aytch I felt as if I had marched him throughout the war with Sam Watkins. From the day to day to day trivia of army life to the emotional highs and lows of each campaign, Sam relates his experiences with a matter of fact delivery. One of the most readable books I have read in years.

This is a wonderful book by Sam R Watkins: a confederate soldier that survived the entire American Civil War (1861-1865). Watkins was a private who joined the Tennessee Army and with whom he participated in every battle and skirmish that the regiment was involved. He received several wounds but never any serious enough to keep him out of action for very long.

These memoirs where written about 20 years (circa 1882) after the last shot was fired and so there are some minor errors in the facts regarding some of the events described. The descriptions are short individual vignettes of battles, marches and daily life associated with the Confederate Army.

What makes this account of the civil war special is the quality of the story telling. The language has a sensitivity to it that seems to capture your imagination and emotions. It is, of course, at times explicitly descriptive, regarding some of the battles and their aftermath, but there are passages that are movingly sad and others that are quite humorous: tales of how thousands of men have to learn to live together and adapt to survive prolonged stressful conditions. The narrative description of the deprivation and dilapidation of the Confederate Army at wars end is heart rendering; men in filthy, tattered clothes, many barefoot and starving.

I learned several things from this work; for instance, I was unaware of the numerous small battles that never claimed the infamy of Gettysburg, Antietam, Manassas etc. but were none the less just as vicious as their larger counterparts. Daily skirmishes were not an infrequent occurrence. I was unaware previously of the frequent court-martials and firing squads used to deal with the relatively large number of deserters from the Southern Army. Also interesting was the acute awareness and acumen of the lowly private soldiers regarding the circumstances surrounding some events that were looming in their immediate future; i.e. battle formations, forced marches, incompetent leaders etc. If the generals had the instincts that some of the "regulars" did, a lot of the carnage may have been substantially reduced or avoided.

The only negatives are (thus the loss of one star)
1.) there are very few dates given(you assume the book runs chronologically)
2.) a map would have made it so much easier to follow the marches and battles locations

All in all a compelling work: personal insights that you just don't find in larger accounts of this period.
Highly recommended if you have any interest in the Civil War era.

This book brings the War Beteween the States into focus in a very unusual and interesting manner: Sam Watkins wrote his experiences in a series of newspaper articles about twenty years after the war. He is able to see through the hatred and causes of the war to bring the reader a view from the day to day soldier. Incredibly, in spite of all the casualties he saw in his own regiment, he has an interesting sense of humor that makes the book much more readable. On the opposite side of the coin, he also relates some horrific events that he witnessed in the war that balance the book in such a way to bring the whole event to life. You really feel you were with him through his experiences by the time you're done. A great book, which was featured in the Ken Burns' Civil War Special due to its honesty and imagery.

THIS BOOK WAS A WONDERFUL LOOK AT THE COMMON SOLDIER DURING THE CIVIL WAR. WATKINS LOOKS AT HIS TIME IN THE ARMY WITH HUMOR AND AND WIT. HE ALSO TELLS OF THE HORROR THAT WAR IS. THIS BOOK KEPT ME INTRESTED FROM START TO FINISH. IT IS A VERY INTERSTING LOOK AT OUR HISTORY. WATKINS TELLS HIS STORY FROM THE POINT OF VIEW OF THE EVERDAY PRIVATES, WHICH IS OFTEN OVERLOOKED WHEN WE READ HISTORY. IN EACH BRIEF PARAGRAPH HE BRINGSD HIS OWN UNIQUE VIEW OF THE EVENTS AROUND HIM. WATKINS GIVE USE THE HORROR AND HUMOR IN WAR AND THESE ARE THINGS WE SHOULD NEVER FORGET. I RECOMEND THIS BOOK TO ALL CIVIL WAR BUFFS!

This is the best book I have ever read.
An absolutely amazing account of a
Civil war survivor. You will miss
Mr. Watkins when the book ends.