Book Description

At the beginning of the Civil War, John M. Copley was a young boy from Dickson County, Tennessee. As a fifteen year old, he enlisted in Company B, 49th Tennessee Infantry in Charlotte, Tennessee. In this narrative, the reader is taken on a journey with Copley from his enlistment in 1861 through the end of the war. The narrative particularly focuses on Copley's participation in Hood's fateful 1864 Tennessee Campaign and his capture amidst the indescribably staggering carnage of the Battle of Franklin, Tennessee on November 30, 1864. Here, Copley as a soldier in Quarles' Brigade, Walthall's Division, was captured on the east side of the Columbia Turnpike near the famous Carter cotton gin. After an all-night march without rations, Copley and his fellow prisoners were taken to the Tennessee State Penitentiary where they awaited transportation by train to Louisville, Kentucky, and further transportation by rail to Chicago, Illinois. Here, at Camp Douglas, Copley, in vivid details, describes the wretched conditions and inhumane treatment he and others received as Confederate prisoners of war at Camp Douglas, Illinois.