This regiment, when the prospects of the Confederacy opened so brilliant in 1861, left Clarksville, Tenn., with nine hundred and sixty men. They were of the best families, and the pride of Montgomery County. Young men, of fine education, surrounded with superior comforts, and who were marked for high positions in civil community, left their homes, pleasant associations, and all the endearments of the fireside–left the legal bar, the counting-room, and the hall of princely home on the plantation, to go into the Confederate ranks, and exterminate the cowardly legions of a tyrannical North. Wily statesmen appealed to the chivalry of Southern hearts to break the bonds of Union, throw off a despotism, and strike for liberty, independence, and the firesides of home. Ambitious fathers pointed to future glories of a Confederacy, and by acts, if not words, urged the son to go in defence of the Southern cause. Mothers kissed the parting boy oft without a tear, and with a burning appeal to die nobly on the battle-field, saw him depart from the childhood home. And girls, just budding into womanhood, the fairy schoolmates and early friends of the young men, cheered them on to deeds of valor and glory. All was wild enthusiasm. Popular frenzy ruled the hour, and he who refused to volunteer was coldly sneered at, and turned from as a coward, and unworthy the name of Southron. Every household that boasted a son was robbed of its idol. The ranks swelled rapidly, faced were missed from every corner, and from every home. And as the hurricane sweeps the stately forest before it, leaving sad destruction in its track, so were the youth swept from their homes, and widly cheered on to the battle-fields, a sacrifice to the shrine of Ambition.

Wildly, enthusiastically, they left their homes without one solid thought as to the true responsibilities of the undertaking. Their march to camp was more like going to the transient joys of a ball-room or festival, than to the cold realities of the battle-field. They then thought the war would be of short duration–that the Northern States would quail before the imposing array of the military and warlike South. They calculated without the cost. They dreamed not that they would be sent from the States to protect the capital of the Confederacy, and participate in the sanquinary battles on the bloody fields of Virginia, while the homes they volunteered to defend, were left unprotected, and occupied by Federal troops.

Two years and a half have flown. A sad change has come over the prospect of the Confederacy. The Fourteenth Tennessee has met a terrible fate. Ever thrown into the front, it has fought in all the bloody contests of Virginia. The fickle Goddess of Fortune failed to smile upon the regiment. Each battle thinned their ranks; and when night closed over each day’s fearful fight they counted their numbers, and knew that carnage had reigned with an unsparing hand. Steadily they have met the shock of battle, and O, how many hearts at home have been saddened by the results! The bright star of their destiny has gradually faded; and at the late fierce battle of Gettysburg, the orb, dimmed in lustre, sank behind the red storm-cloud of battle, on the field of disaster and blood. The regiment went into the fight with sixty men, all told, and in a desperate charge, where Federal cannon and volleys of musketry swept the rugged plain, the remaining sixty men on the once nine hundred and sixty were felled to the ground, dead, dying, wounded, and left in the hands of the enemy. We are told that in this charge only three men out of the sixty escaped; all the rest were killed or wounded.

Thus the band that once was the pride of the city of Clarksville has fallen. The rugged plains of Virginia are stained with their blood, and every battle-field furnishes a grave for some of the fallen. A gloom rests over the city; the hopes and affections of the people were wrapped in the regiment. The idols have fallen, and a void is left within their hearts. Their forms sleep in a common grave, far from the scenes of home. Fathers, mothers, brothers and sisters now realize the terrible sacrifice that has been made; and to know the victims were cheered on to the destiny, is a fact no less grievous than true. Their pulses are now numbered with sorrow; and turning to the past, a vivid picture is drawn–a noble boy passing from the threshold of his home, going to the field of battle with almost a smile on his face, passing out into night and darkness forever!

The early scenes of childhood and manhood are treasured, and form a bright past to the picture; but eternal night obscures the future. The pride of the household is fallen–fallen in a strange land, on a field where carnage held high revel. They only know that he is dead–mortal knows not where the form sleeps–the soldier’s “sleep that knows no waking.” Strange hands have gathered the dead, and heaped the bodies together in one rude and common burial. Friends may visit the battle0ground in search of the lost loved, but return bewildered with the sickening scene, where a wilderness of trenches form a common grave for thousands of friend and foe.

Yes, the sacrifice has been made; the heart is robbed of its idol; death has claimed the victim, and we know not where the loved one sleeps. He died with a ghastly wound, writhed in pain; no mother soothed his brow; no sister held the refreshing draught to his lips–rolled his glassy eyes heavenward; no father knelt in prayer; but alone–his ears filled with the roar of cannon, the rattle of musketry and the groans of fellow-wounded–his lips parted, and parched in death agony; and death and blood everywhere meeting the cold stare of his fading eyesight, the icy chill steals over his body–one struggle–one gasp, and the soul is freed from the “prison-house of pain”! The sacrifice is complete: ambition is satisfied, and turns to gloat with fiendish delight over new victims.

Ah! what a terrible responsibility rests upon those that inaugurated this unholy war, and who have sacrificed so many lives for the accomplishment of their desires. May the pale shadows of their victims haunt their day dreams, and appear in ghostly form in all their night visions. May the cold stare of their accusing eyes haunt them continually, stagger their brain with wild fancies, and demons ever howl their guilt in their ears.