Captain James Madison Sparkman Members in the News

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The Tennessean Civil War soldier-writer to be remembered By SUE MCCLURE   Staff Writer     Thursday, 07/26/01 COLUMBIA — When 21-year-old Sam Watkins marched off to war in 1861, he was one of 120 men in Company H of the First Tennessee Infantry Regiment. At war's end, there were seven soldiers remaining. The Maury County native — immortalized in filmmaker Ken Burns' PBS series The Civil War — not only survived some of the war's fiercest fighting but returned home and penned one of the liveliest, wittiest accounts of the war, a memoir titled Company Aytch.

Subtitled A Side Show of the Big Show, Watkins' engaging retelling of events through the eyes of an ordinary foot soldier has entertained and educated generations of Americans on both sides of the Mason-Dixon line.      On Saturday, admirers of Watkins will join the Sons of Confederate Veterans at 10 a.m. at Watkins' Zion Cemetery grave to mark the 100th anniversary of his death. The centennial memorial service is free and open to the public. "Sam's a pretty special fellow," said Maury County historian Bob Duncan, who often portrays Watkins for historical events. "You see, most of the memoirs of the time were written in a florid style, and Sam didn't write that way at all," Duncan said. "It's like he's sitting on the porch telling you a story." Here he describes taking a meal sack to search for river mussels on the banks of the Duck River at Shelbyville:

ADRIANE JAECKLE / STAFF   Daughters of the Confederacy member Tammy Hatcher of Columbia, dressed in 1860s mourning garb, takes part in a Civil War reenactment commemorating the death of Confederate Pvt. Samuel R. Watkins.

"When we got to camp we cracked the shells and took out the mussels. We tried frying them, but the longer they fried the tougher they got. They were a little too large to swallow whole. Then we stewed them, and after a while we boiled them, and then we baked them, but every flank movement we would make on those mussels the more invulnerable they would get."      "We think this is a positive way to promote our heritage," said Mollie Floyd, who plans to attend the memorial service with other members of the United Daughters of the Confederacy. "He was a wonderful writer and a great storyteller." Sue McClure covers Maury County for The Tennessean. She can be reached at (931) 486-3611 or at smcclure@tennessean.com.

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