Civil War private named Achilles wrote to wife in Athens

SHREVEPORT, La. ( KTAL/KMSS ) – To understand why there was a need for the civil rights era in Shreveport, scholars don’t simply look at the 1950s and 1960s. They delve into the murky waters of history and gather historical facts they use to draw conclusions about Caddo Parish and Northwest Louisiana culture.

To understand what life was like for people in Northwest Louisiana during the Civil War era, we must look at historical sources.

One of those sources is a series of letters that tells the story of a man named Achilles, who left his home in Athens, Louisiana in 1861 without shoes fit for battle.

Here is what we know about this Confederate soldier from the letters he wrote home to Athens, Louisiana, and more specifically to Becky, his wife.

This is the story of John Achilles Harris of Athens .

Achilles of Athens’ military career

Achilles Harris was a husband, father, and private from a town named Athens in Claiborne Parish, Louisiana. He wrote home to his wife Rebecca from the start of the American Civil War, when he left Athens to begin his training at Camp Moore near Tangipahoa and finish training at Camp Benjamin near New Orleans–both in Louisiana. Achilles was a private in Company D of the 19th Louisiana Infantry of the Confederate Army.

In 1862, just after Achilles began serving in combat, he became ill at Corinth, Mississippi. He wrote home, to Becky, about singing while marching through Arkansas in formation. Achilles was in Bolton, Mississippi, near Vicksburg when the city fell to Union forces . He walked his way through Alabama, Tennessee, and eventually wound up in Alabama. He wrote about how the Confederacy lost Nashville during a battle in Tennessee, and he died on July 18, 1864 at the Battle of Ezra Church near Atlanta, Georgia.

And though it’s easy to assume we know what a Confederate soldier would have written in letters he sent home to his wife, sometimes the reality of Achilles’ words are shocking.

He starts off with a letter he sent while in training.

Becky, “the first time you go to Homer or elsewhere get me a stout pair of No. 9 shoes on my credit and send them by a good chance,” Achilles writes.

This gives us a glimpse into what was on his mind when he first joined the Confederacy.

“Becky, you wish me at home, but Becky as long as you can do without me, I want to stay in the army… We had news last night that a battle was going on near Charlotte…  It was telegraphed to New Orleans last night and the cars brought the news this morning up here.”

By cars, Achilles is referring to train cars.

Achilles’ first letter home to Becky proved that news traveled surprisingly fast to troops in Louisiana.

Surviving letters written by Achilles to Becky give us the opportunity to view history in a new way–through the perspective of Achilles. The letters have been in the possession of Emory University archives since 1963, but only in recent years did they show up in Claiborne Parish archives.

A Homerian tragedy unfolding in Homer, Louisiana

By the time Achilles the Army private was amongst Confederates at Camp Moore, a seasoned Union Loyalist and abolitionist named Jasper Blackburn was already publishing THE HOMER ILIAD—an anti-Confederate, pro-Union newspaper in Claiborne Parish.

One of the truly interesting things about Claiborne Parish history as that the parish didn’t, as a whole, voted for succession from the Union when votes were tallied in 1861. Unionists and Confederates lived in the parish at the time.

It’s hard to understand that an actual Homerian tragedy reenacted itself in Claiborne Parish during the American Civil War, but it did.

Fifteen decades have passed since the Civil War, but historians are only beginning to connect the literary dots in the real-life local epic that strongly resembles old-world story of the Trojan War.

From the old seat of Claiborne Parish (Athens) to Arcadia’s Greek name meaning idyllic and pastoral (according to the works of Virgil); from the historic settlement of Sparta to The Homer Iliad newspaper, Northwest Louisiana is overflowing with references to the old world.

But are historians in our region truly ready for an Athenian named Achilles? Because it will take generations for scholars to sort through parallels between men and myth, old world and new, literary legacy and historical authenticity.

In April of 1861, Achilles wrote that the “Hills Company broke up last night.  I don’t know the cause, but I do think it is a disgrace to the Parish for a Co. to do as they done.”

Historians in Claiborne Parish don’t know what the ‘Hills Company’ was in Civil War history. And they certainly don’t understand why the company’s dissolution was considered a disgrace to some citizens in Claiborne Parish.

Achilles the ancient warrior vs. Achilles of Athens

Achilles’ tales from the Civil War battlefront aren’t so very different than those of Achilles from the front lines of the Trojan War. Thanks to the ancient, epic poet Homer, we can understand events that took place in and around Troy more than 3000 years ago.

Claiborne Parish has her own Civil War stories that seem connected by fate to Homer’s ancient poetry , and a true understanding of the north/south dispute between citizens in the parish has not been effectively told as of yet.

“Like the generation of leaves, the lives of mortal men,” wrote Homer. And that is true whether we’re discussing the Trojan War, the Civil War, or any war fought in between the two.

Achilles of Athens believed in a mirage of regional perfection, an image that existed in the minds of many American men (on both sides) during the Civil War. And he wrote about it, too.

“The land of the south, the fairest and happiest of all the earth,” he wrote to Becky while describing Claiborne Parish and the South as a whole.

The ancient Achilles was also guided to fight in the Trojan War by a set of strongly held notions concerning the world he lived in.

“If I return home to my dear native land, then lost is my glorious renown, yet shall my life long endure, neither shall the doom of death come soon upon me,” said Achilles in Homer’s The Iliad.

Achilles of Athens had a similar outlook. In March of 1863, the Confederate private stopped referring to his wife by her first name and began his letter with, “Dear Widow.”  He told his children to obey their mother. He also suddenly and noticeably committed himself to military life.

“If I were worth millions and could all the time have good health,” he wrote in 1863, “I would still want to be with my fellow soldiers.”

Jasper Blackburn’s take on regionalism was very different from either of the two Achilles. Blackburn, the publisher of The Iliad (Anti-Confederate newspaper in Homer) wrote the following words toward the end of his life, recollecting his days in journalism.

“I did this simply under a sense and feeling of patriotism—as one who loved his whole country dearer than any local section, and dearer than life itself.  And in telling why I survived this course, in the midst of much local prejudice and mob violence, I but repeat what should be the pride and glory of every editor—what should be remembered as his laudable and enviable experience in journalism simply and solely because my people knew I was honest and sincere in my course, without prejudice or aim to harm anyone, or to destroy or even harm the best interest of any section; for I already acquired the reputation for speaking my thoughts freely and without guise, and according to my own unprejudiced and candid convictions of truth and right.”

The two Achilles on higher powers

The parallel between the two Achilles’ and The Homer Iliad is a subject one can spend a lifetime researching. Th author of this article plans to do so with her life.

“Imagine a king who fights his own battles.  Wouldn’t that be a sight?” asked Achilles in a movie-star-studded depiction of the ancient Homerian legend .

And such thoughts are nearly identical to those written by Achilles of Athens in February of 1863.

“I hear that great dissatisfaction reigns in our country in regard to the exemption law, and I cannot blame the people their,” he wrote to his wife.

The controversial exemption law allowed those who owned 20 slaves to be exemption from fighting for the Confederacy. All other southern men, ages 17-50, were required to fight unless they could pay someone to fight for them.

Such did not sit well with Achilles of Athens.

“I mean those who are poor and have always had to work and all their lives to support their little children… look at it in its proper light,” he wrote to Becky.  “Now how is it those very rich men are the best of the overseers, can have more work done and keep the (enslaved) in better subjection that any poor man and the poor have to leave those to the mercy of the rich and go out to fight the battle of the country—and who for—have not the men of property more at stake than the poor.  Certain they have and they are the ones who ought to face the canon or else when we gain our independence their effects ought to be taken and equally distributed between those who have gained for them their independence… but as sure as there is a just God in heaven there will be a day of reckoning.”

Achilles the ancient warrior once said, “if a man obeys the gods they’re quick to hear his prayers.” And generation upon generation later, Achilles of Athens, Louisiana wrote home to Becky the heart-wrenching words that called out from deep within his soul: “All I ask of you is to remember me in your Devotions to God, and pray for peace. I believe in fervent, faithful prayers, for it availeth much.” Faith is a subject repeated in J. Achilles Harris’ letters.

Brutal truths about the Civil War

Achilles of Athens wrote from near Oxford, Mississippi in June of 1862.

“They have us in a hole and are scratching like dogs to get us.”

He was still hopeful.  But by February he wrote of having to surrender Nashville.

“I don’t believe Becky we can ever whip the Yankeys,” he wrote.

Meanwhile, back in Homer, Jasper Blackburn and others were fighting against the Confederacy with every syllable they could muster. Blackburn was almost placed before a Confederate firing squad for printing counterfeit Confederate currency, perhaps on his Anti-Confederacy printing press in Homer.

And as Blackburn wrote, edited, and distributed his newspaper, the front lines were becoming increasingly unpleasant for Achilles of Athens.

“The Colonel issued orders this week that if any Soldier while on drill should break ranks for a call of nature, and should stand longer than usual time, he will be punished, by being tied up by the thumbs for 15 minutes or till he faints,” wrote Achilles of Athens to Becky on July 6 from Tupelo, Mississippi.

Then the details got a bit more gruesome.

“A great many have diarrhea and they have to suffer—some do their business occasionally in their clothes.”

Achilles of Athens went on to describe being arrested for not following orders during a call of nature, and narrated his own frustration with Confederate leadership over their responses.

The ancient Achilles struggled with authority, too. “What a worthless, burnt-out coward I’d be called if I would submit to you and your orders,” he yelled to a military superior in The Iliad.

Onward toward Mobile, Alabama Achilles of Athens moved as the war progressed.

“We left Tupalo, got to Mobile on Monday night following—But happened to a very serious (accident) on the way—the 18 La Regiment were on train ahead of ours, and stopped in bend of the road to wood. (It must have been a wood-burning steam engine.) It was a little foggy and our engineer (ran into) the 18th train, smashing up several boxes and killing 6 soldiers and wounding a good many more some of whom I fear will (die). We lost but one out of our regiment—poor fellow had both his legs mashed into just below the knee, he lived some 3 hours afterwards…”

Achilles of Athens becomes depressed

By the 19th of August, the company was in Pollard, Alabama. Achilles of Athens asked for locks of his childrens’ hair and wrote to Becky that he weighed 190 lbs.

January of 1863 found an even more depressing outlook in the weary Private.

“I don’t think that there will be any peace… What never have peace again!  No never.”

And Achilles of Athens’ recommendations for defeating the Union Army are deeply disturbing in his letters to Becky.

Jasper Blackburn earned the nickname “The White Blackbird” from a scathing piece he wrote, reprinted in the New York Times, that wholly condemned the pre-war caning of Charles Sumner . How well-known was Sumner, the abolitionist from Kansas?  In a letter dated February 23 of 1863, Achilles of Athens wrote of Sumner and proved that locals were well familiar with the previous violence that had taken place in congress.

“Well yesterday I see Conway of Kansas,” wrote Achilles, “one of the most ultra republican members of congress, has made a strong speech in favor of peace and the stoppage of the war, the speech is said to have the approval of Gov. Andrew Charles Sumner Wendell Phillips Horase Greely and other leading abolitionists. He is against reunion and ready to acknowledge the independence of the Confederate States…”

Such proves that the Unionists and Confederates of Old Claiborne Parish were adept at keeping up with the political processes taking place in D.C.

Achilles of Athens’ letters teach us about an era of telegraphs and trains, of poor men fighting wars that rich men waged, of biological warfare and bonds between neighbors.

But when combined with the Unionist and literary history we have recorded in Claiborne Parish, we also learn of the strength and dignity of the human spirit.

Strength and dignity of the human spirit: Trojan and Civil Wars

Sometimes humans feel compelled to stand up for what they believe in, even if they know it’s going to cost them their lives.

Jasper Blackburn and John Achilles Harris were on opposite sides of the Civil War, but each of these men stood up for the sanctity of their American dreams. The two men did not have the same dream for America, but they stood for what they believed in—even though they stood in direct opposition to one another.

Homer’s epic poem The Iliad shows the same thing, too. One cannot help but love both Hector and Achilles, though they battle one another and for two different causes. One can easily feel empathy for both, knowing both meet their death in a war thousands of years ago.

Through Achilles of Athens’ words, we can walk with him from Athens to Tangipahoa, up to Nashville, and down to Tupelo. Through his letters, we can hear him sing while marching. We can search with him for a sewing needle to send back home to Becky. Through his own words, written to his wife, we can drink coffee with him and witness the horror of the Confederate train wreck at Mobile.

Achilles of Athens’ death

“In the Field Near Atlanta.  July 30th, 1864,” the very last letter in the Private John Achilles Harris collection begins. “Mrs. Rebecca Harris. As a friend to Your Self and husband it becomes my painful duty to inform you of the death of your husband. He fell on the 28th inst Nobly defending his country… he died in a very few moments. Mr. Harris deeply do I sympathize with you but I am aware of the fact that all the sympathy… give you… little consolation.  But a Christian heart like yours will turn to the worlds of a blessed Saviour that never failing source of heavenly love. Affliction is one of the hardest trials that we have on earth that of parting forever with a dear companion. But such is life. It is not left to us to say when we are willing to part without our loved ones, but God takes them in His own proper time and we as Christian people should submit…”

After the post-Civil War Reconstruction era, Jasper Blackburn sold his printing press and returned to his childhood home of Arkansas.

Achilles of Athens is buried where he fell at the Battle of Atlanta, which is now a polite little neighborhood with a historic marker located between homes.

The ancient poet Homer wrote, in The Iliad, that any moment might be our last.

“Everything is more beautiful because we’re doomed,” he calls out to us through a time gap more than three thousand years.

And yet mankind is so amazing, so full of emotion, that even thousands of years after the Trojan War and more than 150 years after the Civil War we can view our own species’ history and understand how it felt to be either Achilles.

And whether we’re in Homer, Troy, Athens, Arcadia, or Acadiana, we are all capable of understanding the emotion behind epic poetry.

“You will never be lovelier than you are now,” wrote Homer. “We will never be here again.”

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