"When it became evident that hostilities were about to begin, President Lincoln having called for 75,000, to begin a march to Richmond, I, R. T. Fouche, aged 23 years, joined the Rome Light Guards as a private. That company was commanded by E. J. Magruder, a graduate of the Virginia Military Institute, of which institution the illustrious Stonewall Jackson, was a Professor.

Francis S. Bartow of Savannah came to Rome, early in 1861 and after consulting with the Rome Light Guards it was decided to tender our service directly to the Confederate States of America for the war. This we did sending our officers to Montgomery for that purpose. Joseph E. Brown, then Governor of Georgia, actuated by what appeared to us self important jealousy, became so angered that we did not go through him as Chief Executive of the State, disarmed our Company. After some delay, we secured old "Mississippi" Rifles, very inferior guns, and thus equipped we left Rome, Ga., for Richmond, Va. May 27th, 1861.

Our first night was passed at Kingston and there I did my first guard duty.

Reporting at Richmond, we were within a week, organized as Company A, 8th Ga. Regt. F. S. Bartow, Col, W. A. Gardner, [Lt. Col.,] a West Pointer and Thomas Cooper, Major. We then went to Harper's Ferry where Jos. E. Johnson was in command. Gen. Johnson regarded Harper's Ferry as a veritable military trap and soon evacuated it. The vicissitudes of war verified his opinion for just before the battle of Sharpsburg, General Jackson with one Division, captured 11,000 Federals there. At Winchester we had light fighting but here we went through all the diseases incident to soldier life - we had measles, mumps, whooping cough, camp, malarial and typhoid fever, but the Rome Light Guards lost only one member.

On the 18th of July, Gen. Beauregard had a severe fight at Manassas Junction and General Johnson's troops started to his relief at one o'clock that night, and here began for us real warfare. We marched continuously till daylight and the second day reached Manassas and rested that night. 21st of July we were awakened by the sound of Artillery quite near us and by ten o'clock were under fire. The details of that bloody day are History. The 8th Georgia lost half of its members. The Rome Light Guards lost six killed and many wounded. There Charlie Norton and George Stovall, my life long friends laid down their lives for the cause they loved and with my own hands I helped to make the rude coffins in which we buried them wrapped in their blankets.

We had three companies for Floyd County in the 8th Regt. and twenty one young men of our County were killed that day. Bartow our gallant Col. was killed and Lt. Col. Gardner desperately wounded. Our position in that fight was most disadvantageous. We were in the open and poorly armed, while the enemy had protection of fences and the best guns. It would seem a needless sacrifice of life, but it often happens in war that men must be sacrificed to save time, and so it was here. We arrested and delayed the enemy's advance and thus made possible a victory that astonished and stunned the enemy, and drove a grand and boasting Army back to Washington a disordered mass of fugitives. After the battle we camped at Bull Run and as the winter of '61 approached, established ourselves in winter quarters at Centerville. From our picket lines we could see men waking on the dome of the Capitol at Washington.

Having been for years a martyr to rheumatism, I wish to put on record this new remedy for the dread disease - Constant exposure - and an out of door life - and soldier's fare. This rendered me from that winter to the close of the war, a rheumatic immune.

Beginning in the Spring of 1862, we bore our part of the fights at Warrick River - Mechanicsville - Garnett's Farm - Malvern Hill - Rappahannock Bridge - Thoroughfare Gap - Second Manassas (where I was wounded in the leg and laid up about two weeks) - Fredericksburg, and Williamsburg. This last was a fierce and bloody battle and here as on all occasions before and afterward Gen. Longstreet exhibited Generalship of the highest order. Sept. 1863, Gen. Longstreet was ordered to reinforce Gen. Bragg but as we were en route, Gen. Beauregard being severely pressed at Charleston, S. C. the Anderson's Brigade was sent to that city. During our ten days stay there, we were in almost daily skirmishes. The enemy being about to advance in Georgia, we were hurried on to Chickamauga but arrived too late for that fight. After a few small affairs around Chattanooga we started towards Knoxville about Nov. 1st, and after battles at Louden and Campbell's Station we closed in on Knoxville. There we had daily skirmishes till Nov. 19th, when we assaulted Fort Sanders and suffered a severe repulse.

The Captain of my company, Sydney Hall, a brave and true man was killed. I hoped then and I hope now that I may sometimes be able to bring his sacred dust and lay it with other of my loved ones in our own Myrtle Hill. His death made J. T. Moore Capt. and me 1st Lt. of the Rome Light Guards.

Then followed fights at Marble Hill and Bean Station.

On the 16th of January the enemy appeared in considerable force at Dandridge, Tenn. and we went to meet them. On the 17th, two Brigades, Anderson's of Georgia and Jenkin's of South Carolina turned the left flank of the enemy under Gen. Sturges and just at night fall, we had a severe combat. I was at the time acting Aide de Camp to Gen. G. T. Anderson and was desperately wounded being shot through the right lung. My wound was regarded fatal and a comrade detailed to stay with me, my bed being a pile of shucks in a barn. I discovered the ball lodged in my back and next morning the surgeon cut into the lung from the back and took it out and also fragments of rib. Two weeks later a pin with which my jacket had been fastened and particles of my clothing came out of the wound having passed through my body.

It became necessary to carry the wounded to Morristown and another soldier and I were put into an ambulance. It broke down about sun down and the weather being intensely cold it looked like we would be left to die from cold, but Gen. Micah Jenkins and staff passing, saw our condition and he gave us his blankets and those of his staff and had us taken to Morristown that night. This was the gallant officer who was killed at the Wilderness by the same shell that maimed Gen. Longstreet for life. He visited me while I lay prostrate with my wound, but the vicissitudes of war were such, that I never saw his face again. I remained in the hospital a month and thence after much suffering and exposure, through the unselfish devotion of my brother, Norton Fouche, I was carried to my father's refugee home in Appling County, Georgia. I returned to duty in June 1864 and found General Lee's Army in the act of crossing the James River at Drury's Bluff. I resumed my place on General Anderson's staff and in a few days began the duties of a soldier on the fighting line which Gen. Lee established in defense of Richmond and Petersburg. The enemy was ever present and for nine months there was a fight on some part of the line, daily, some days a fierce battle, others a skirmish. Few days passed that a comrade did not fall.

At Ream Station, with Wilcox, Hampton and others we captured 2200 Federals, among them Gen. Hancock's Adjutant. At Fussel's Mill we had a bloody battle - at Deep Bottom a severe skirmish, in which I got a bullet in my shoulder. Assaulting a Fort, Daniel Towers, eldest son of our gallant Col. John R. Towers, was killed and it was here, negro troops charged us. Gen. Butler assaulted us on October 23rd, and we killed and captured 2500 of his men. Thus it went on, fighting by day, fighting by night, on the north bank of the James River today, on the south bank 30 miles away tomorrow, until by sheer exhaustion our ranks were depleted and our line so extended, that an army of 200,000 found a weak point in a line of battle forty miles long, with less than 50,000 men defending it and breaking through it captured Richmond and reduced it to ashes. And then began the closing days of that great Drama, the last scene of which occurred at Appomattox Court House Virginia.

Many touching and beautiful descriptions of that day have been written in song and story.

No words of mine can describe it. I can only say the wound left in my heart even time itself has never been able to heal.

My commission as Captain is dated April 26, 1865. My commission as Major of the 8th, March 1865."