Several of our comrades engaged in the ministry and be-
came as zealous followers of the Cross of Christ as they
had been of the Cross of the South, in the days of the six-
ties. They had" some desertions, as all regiments had, and
some took^ the oath in prison, but taken as a
whole, the Thirtieth Georgia has a record of
which they may well feel proud. Their record has
been made grand and lustrous by deeds of valor
on many battlefields and duty performed in every ca-
pacity, in which they were called to act. Owing to their
service on the coast for a year and a half, they did not take
part in as many battles as some regiments, and had fewer
casualties, but while on the coast they built fortifications and
picketed the islands, which prevented the advance of the
enemy upon our seaboard cities. After leaving Savannah
and going to Mississippi, they participated in the engager
ments around Jackson and then, joining Bragg's army, they
won proud laurels in the great battle of Chickamaugaj
where, out of 364 men, they lost 126 in killed and wounded.
In the campaign from Dalton to Atlanta they took part in



142 History of The

most of the engagements. At Calhoun, Kennesaw, Peach-
tree, Atlanta and Jonesboro, they proudly illustrated Geor-
gia's valor, and when Hood went to Tennessee, they left
their homes in the possession of the enemy to follow their
flag in that disastrous campaign, and at Franklin, Mur-
freesboro, Decatur and Nashville they fully sustained their
reputation as true soldiers. In every action in which they
took part, after the smoke of the battle cleared away, some
of their comrades lay dead upon the field, martyrs of the
cause which they espoused.
